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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403651">A Hart in Texas</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Nerds/pseuds/moonswirl'>moonswirl (Awesome_Nerds)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Lucaya Project [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Girl Meets World</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2017-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2017-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:40:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>368,207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Nerds/pseuds/moonswirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>1st of a series of daily updated year-round stories, following an alternate timeline in which Maya Hart moves to Texas instead of Lucas Friar moving to New York. - Lucaya Project 2017</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lucas Friar/Maya Hart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Lucaya Project [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Her Departure From What Was Known</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I will be bringing this story and its sequels along, little by little. There are nearly four full years' worth, plus two sideline stories, so it will take some time for me to catch up to where I am presently.</p>
<p>The story is broken down in week-long blocks, as reflected in the chapter title roots.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her life was and would remain what it was. She had come to a point where, even at thirteen years old, she had seen the lot she had been handed and stopped it from feeling like a weight on her shoulders. It didn’t protect her a hundred percent of the time, but when it did then she felt good. She had a mother who was… who she was. She didn’t have a father, and that was all she would choose to say on the matter. She had a best friend, a ray of sunshine that was a lot of work, sure, but worth every bit of it. She was in 7<sup>th</sup> grade, and her grades… existed.</p><p> </p><p>She would go on her own in the morning, climbing her way into Riley’s home, and together they would head to school. Today, the two of them would head on that way by getting on the train, underground. Here Riley would stand out in her uneasiness, but oh, not her. Maya was known here, greeted in passing as an integral piece of this small world. How could she ever pass it up?</p><p> </p><p>For Riley, it was a different experience, and Maya had to smile, seeing her standing there with so much fretful pride in herself. She applied kiwi lip gloss, the gloss already new to her, and she declared herself just as cool as her now. Maya could do nothing but keep on smiling, laughing a little. It would only have been her pleasure to test this theory. She surveyed their surroundings, the other passengers of the train car, but on that morning it was slim pickings, just men and women probably off to work, some parents with their kids… What she wouldn’t have given for a cute boy to unleash ‘cool grownup Riley Matthews’ on.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, all she could count on was one more uneventful day at school, and that could be dangerous where she was involved. One boring day too many and she just might earn herself her longest bout in detention yet. She could try and focus on Riley, see where this streak would take them… That usually did the trick.</p><p> </p><p>By lunch, she was feeling control slipping. It was her, and Riley, and Farkle, just as it had been since they were all little. She liked their trio, not to be mistaken for being in any way ungrateful for the friends she had. She had different friends once, so far from Riley Matthews and Farkle Minkus as one could get. These two had given her so much in doing little more than to be her friends, but to her it was as good as gold. She would never let anyone hurt either of them.</p><p> </p><p>As close as she was to them, what they knew of her life did vary to some degree, and even so she knew that there were still things she did not tell either of them. It wasn’t as though she didn’t trust in their ability to keep secrets. There were just some things she could not see herself putting into words, feelings that lived so deep inside her that she wouldn’t have known how to bring them to the surface and even try. Someday, maybe, she would be grown, would be strong enough.</p><p> </p><p>Their lives were good, and sometimes she would say something in passing, only to see one of those looks on their faces, the ones that said they didn’t understand, or they didn’t know how to respond, or they just… didn’t know what she was talking about. She never wanted to hold that against them. It wasn’t their fault. They were wonderful people, worthy of the protection she felt drawn to lay over them, to shield the light that burst right out of them. In return, they made her darkness feel that much more bearable.</p><p> </p><p>The day had reached its dull end. No incidents to report, and as good as that was, it did make her wonder. A day like this, it would make her anxious. Things had been too quiet. Surely, something would come and disrupt it. They never had it so easy, not here. The height of this day could not possibly be Riley Matthews and her new lip gloss, no, she didn’t buy it.</p><p> </p><p>They rode back to the Matthews house, and again Maya had tried to find a way to test Riley on, but the best they got was one more sighting of Crazy Hat. Bad, this was bad. She left to head home, and she felt like a hunter on the prowl for… trouble. Her mother would still be at work, what was she going to do, her homework? No, that was what they wanted her to do, ha. She wasn’t going to be lulled into thinking this day would end that way.</p><p> </p><p>She reached her apartment building with no incident, climbed up to her floor, reached the door… and heard noise from inside. Had she been right or what? Someone had broken in, of course. So this was what she’d do. She would knock, loudly, back away and wait to see what came out of there. She was brave, not stupid.</p><p> </p><p>So she knocked, three good knocks, sprang back… and then the door opened and there stood…</p><p> </p><p>“Mom?” she blinked. “You’re early, what… what’s going on?” Her mother looked… nervous?</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Her Departure From the Expected</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had lost any and all ability to retain a single word of what her mother said for a while after she heard ‘we’re moving’ followed by their destination. Texas. It could have been anywhere really, any place outside of the city where she had been born and raised, where everything and everyone she knew existed, and she would have had the same reaction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maya, are you listening to me?” she eventually heard her mother, and she looked back at her. Her mother knew this would be a shock to her, that had been the look on her face when she’d opened the door. Then Maya had seen a stack of empty boxes sitting there, the kind they would have flattened and waiting to be picked up for trash or recycling at the diner. Some of them already looked like they had been filled. There had been no chance to approach the subject in any way that wasn’t simple or direct.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But… why, but… no,” she stepped back. “No way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s a great opportunity, for both of us. I’ve got listings for a house out there, Maya, a real house. Won’t that be great?” She was excited, her mother was so excited, but cautious, too. She wanted Maya to be excited, too. She could only stare at her mother, taking in her face, thinking of what she might tell her in response. “It’ll be small, but bigger than here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We…” She paused, took a breath She couldn’t explode, not now. “We can’t afford that, can we? If we did, we…” Her mother blinked. “Mom? Who…” She didn’t even have to say it. Suddenly she was remembering a look on Mr. Matthews’ face and it all came together. Them. They were giving her the money… of course they would. “Does Riley know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No,” her mother quickly assured her. “I wanted you to know first. Maya… This is a good thing. It’s going to be hard at first, for me, too…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t want to go.” There, she’d said it. Her mother’s face gave a twinge, as she’d known it would, but she couldn’t just lie and pretend this felt good to her, could she? “This is my whole world, I can’t just… start over because you…” She stopped herself just short of saying something she knew she would have regretted, but the damage was about as good as done.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Listen now, Maya,” her mother breathed out. “I knew you’d have trouble with this, but I need you to trust me when I tell you I didn’t make this choice lightly. You are thirteen, I know right now you’re not seeing the big picture, but you have to. I work, every day, to give you the best life I can, and this…” she gestured around the room, “This isn’t it, baby girl. This chance, in Austin, it will change everything for us, I know it will, and I need you to have faith in that, too.” She was just on the verge of pulling some kind of ‘we are going and you have no say in it.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I…” Maya tried to speak, but all she could feel was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, stinging.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maya…” her mother moved toward her, arms raising to embrace her, but at that moment she backed away and ran for her room, shutting the door and leaning to it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maybe in time her head would clear and she would find a way to look at this like it was something more than the sudden implosion of her life. Right now, her brain felt unable to produce anything but a jumble of panic and alarm. This wasn’t real, this was a nightmare. Any moment now, she would wake up and it would go away. These real feelings, the pounding in her chest, they only felt real because her mind was playing tricks on her. Any moment now… It would happen… She would wake up… wake up… Wake up!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her stomach was growling, violently. Twenty minutes had gone by, and she was still here. The panic had started to settle, but all that did was to force her to come to a terrible conclusion. If this was a nightmare, it was the waking kind. This was really happening. They were moving to Texas. Just thinking it, the lump in her throat got tighter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She didn’t want to go out there, not yet. She couldn’t face her mother. But she needed food, she needed… Riley… while she still had her. She texted. ‘Come quick. Bring food.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Looking around at her room, she wondered how long she could stay in here before she really had to get out. She could go by the window, she… No… She was upset at her mother but not that much. Still, she might change her mind. Their life was what it was, but it wasn’t as bad as she made it sound, was it? Why would they have to go all the way to Texas to make it better? She may have complained, sometimes, but she would take it all back, immediately, if it meant they got to stay… She would be the most satisfied girl on the planet if that was what it took.</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Her Departure From Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She wasn’t going to pack. That would be admitting that it was real, and she was not going to do that. She had gone and sat on her bed, that was all. So far, her mother had made no attempt to come and speak to her again. She could hear her out there though, packing, no doubt. The way she was going about it, they could have been gone in days… No… Not doing it, not…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The knocking at her door came then, and she knew it wasn’t her mother. She stood and went to open. Riley. The way she stared at her, all wide eyed and stricken, she had to have figured out what was happening as soon as she saw the state of things out there. At once, Maya had thrown her arms around her, and her best friend had squeezed her right back. Now the denial was all gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Riley, the Honey to her Peaches, bless her, had pleaded as fervently as Maya herself had done for this to have been a mistake, to not happen. She would have put her up right there in her room without a moment’s thought. They would be living together and that would be that. Maya would have chosen this in a heartbeat, too, except it couldn’t be and she knew it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Riley found out about her parents’ part in all this, her initial reaction was of affront at the fact that her parents had known about and been complicit in this, and had Maya not held her back, she could have run right back home to give them a piece of her mind. Instead, they sat and she handed over the promised food, which was revealed to be a box of cookies. It would do just fine. Maya had gone through four before she could try and speak.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She’s not going to change her mind.” Somehow it felt easier to say when she had to say it to her. Riley looked like she was trying to keep from crying, to be cool for her. All Maya had to do was let her see that she was already crying herself, and then the floodgates burst, punctuated between sobs and cookies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then there was another knock, not at the door but at the window. Maya turned to find a mop of hair sitting over a bright face that lost its smile the moment it saw her tears. She stood and opened the window, to Farkle’s surprise greeting him with what might have been the most earnest hug she had ever given him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Who died?” he asked, looking from her to Riley and back. “Is someone dying?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m moving,” she said it, watching the boy’s expression shoot up and sink back down again as he processed the news. “To Texas.” Without a word, he hugged her again, and she took it gladly. In a moment, there were Riley’s arms, too. No more fighting left in her, she was going to take what she had left of them for as long as she could.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When she finally emerged from her room, it was with both of them on either side of her, looking as beaten down as she did, by the look her mother gave them. She had made progress in Maya’s absence, which was not surprising, she guessed. They had that in common. They had to keep busy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After Riley and Farkle had gone, Maya had asked the question she needed answered, maybe the only one. How long before they had to go? Her mother told her they would start the drive down there in a week. Most of what they would bring with them would be shipped out there the day before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One week. As long as that could sometimes feel, she knew these last seven days in New York would all fly by, and suddenly she would be saying goodbye to this place, remembering this exact moment as though she had only just lived it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With no better option set before her, she had grabbed a pair of boxes and dragged them back to her room. She stood there in the door, looking at it while it still existed this way, before she had to tear it all down. She wanted to remember… all of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Soon, instead of packing, she was sitting on the ground, there in the door, with a pad of paper and a pencil. She had started to draw it all, as close to reality as she could make it, and it was a surprise even to her that she was succeeding. She had not felt so at peace since she’d come home as when she sat here and looked at the image she was putting together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the days that would follow, she would come to repeat the exercise time and again. She drew the view from her window, her school, Riley’s bay window, her mother’s diner… She drew her friends, those people who had been her world more than any one place or thing. They were what would make leaving the hardest, and she hoped they knew this, deep down. These pages she would take with her, would cherish for all that they represented.</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Her Departure From New York</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her room had been emptied the day before, bed and all. It had never looked so big. When they had walked out of there for the last time, she’d played it cool, even though inside… Her heart would go and get raging on every so often. It wouldn’t let her forget that it was all ending. Every new thing that was taken away was just one more piece of her world being taken from her. Soon she might not feel as though she belonged anywhere at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At least she had spent her last night in New York at Riley’s house. Her mother had slept on the couch, while she’d been off in her friend’s room. Maya could not say that she or Riley had even tried to go to sleep. They had fallen asleep, eventually, but they could have stayed up all night if not for that. They had spent most of their time awake talking about her last afternoon in school.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’d still been made to go in, even though she would be gone in a matter of days. Maya had spent those days in a fierce battle between wanting to just ignore what was happening around her and wanting to absorb it all while she still could. Then, on her last afternoon, in Mr. Matthews’ class, of course, she had her last class with her friends. It had been her plan not to let anyone know she was leaving, but with Riley around, and Farkle…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In that last class, Mr. Matthews had let them have the period to themselves with a game, though they’d all seen through it and found the lesson he’d wanted to give them. She had appreciated it, more than she knew how to say. That night when they had returned to the Matthews’ house she had thanked her now former teacher, going so far as to hug him. She had done the same with Riley’s mother. Even with her ongoing issues with the move, a part of her wanted to take the chance to thank them both for what they’d done, for the house but everything else, too, everything they’d done for her since she’d known them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Morning had come, and she’d woken up knowing she would be leaving today. She stood and went to sit in the bay window, looking out at her habitual entry point. Would she leave through there, just as she’d come in the first time? No… that would suggest she’d never be back here again. But she would… of course she would. They would visit, wouldn’t they?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’d had breakfast, all of them together. Riley would not leave her side for a second, which was absolutely fine by her, although she had waited in the hall when Maya had gone to the bathroom, talking to her all along.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The time was coming. The last things had been packed up in their rental car, and now her mother was giving her a look that said she needed to get on with her goodbyes. Auggie had come to her first, in his valiant five-year-old stance, saying he would look after Riley for her. She’d smiled and given him a good squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Matthews had come next, and she wouldn’t have expected to be so affected at having to say goodbye to them, but seeing how they had a hard time of it, too, she took in that emotion they passed to her with great appreciation. They were family, as much as her own mother, and now the lump in her throat made its return, before she even had the time to turn to her last goodbye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’d already said her goodbye to Farkle the day before. As aggravated as she might have shown herself around him a lot of the time, he was one of her two closest friends. She told him as much, and also that Austin could never be as good as New York, because it didn’t have a Farkle Minkus. He had never looked so proud, and that was the image she’d keep of him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When all there was left for her to do was to say her goodbyes to Riley, she’d turned to her, seeing immediately her brave little smile splashed with tears. She pulled her near, and held on as tightly as she was held. She leaned in at her best friend’s ear, whispering words that would remain for only the two of them to know. Riley gave a quick nod against her shoulder in acknowledgment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was time to get in the car. She made Riley promise not to run after her, and as much as she swore it, Maya gave Mr. Matthews a look. He would keep her there; she would have run all the way to Texas if she could.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She watched them as the car drove off, Riley, Auggie, their parents… They got smaller and smaller, until she couldn’t see them anymore. When that happened, Maya took a deep breath. This was it. Soon it would be the whole city that shrank away, and then she’d have nothing familiar to hold on to. All she’d have would be mile upon mile of the unknown, stretching before her, as she and her mother made their way to their new world, in Texas.</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Her Departure From Everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They had been driving all day, and they might have gone on if they could both drive, but she was still a few years from that, and so they’d been forced to stop for the night at a motel. Maya didn’t argue and followed her mother until they had a key and they made their way into their room. Once there, she sat on the bed they would be sharing and continued – as she’d done all day – to distractedly reply when her mother spoke to her, but otherwise she remained silent.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She couldn’t say for sure whether she’d been awake the whole time or not. After a while, a road looked like a road, so she might have briefly drifted off now and again. Her mother would try to engage her, pointing out one site or another, but Maya would give a vague acknowledgment and little more. She tried, she honestly did, but she couldn’t do it. Maybe it was just this point in time, the in-between, where they were belonging to no place, but she felt like she had no home, no world, and it scared her more than she could admit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They did have a home, waiting in Austin, bought and all. Her mother had shown her pictures, looking so happy again. She had never owned a house before. Maya had looked at the pictures, but she still couldn’t attach herself to an image. Maybe when she saw the real thing it would be different, when she could actually touch it, stand in it… Right now, it was something that existed, somewhere, like any old photo, but it didn’t feel like it was her place.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She didn’t like this feeling, and she soon saw her mother didn’t like it either. She had left her in the room, watching television, while she went to get them dinner. She returned with a large paper bag, two bottles sticking out of her pockets, and a plastic bag looped around her wrist. Their dinner set on the table, she presented Maya with the plastic bag. Inside, she found a thick sketchbook and a tin box of pencils along with a sharpener.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where did you find these, we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Maya looked back up to her mother.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The middle of nowhere has nothing on me, not when it means putting a smile on that little face,” her mother declared, nodding to her. “And see? I did,” she smiled, as Maya’s own unexpected smile spread wider. “Come on, now, time to eat.” The bag was left on the bed, eagerly to be rejoined once they’d had their dinner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As the evening had drawn on, her mother had soon fallen asleep, laid out on the bed watching television while Maya sat next to her peacefully drawing. She had made her daughter promise not to stay up too late, as they would need to get back on the road early the next morning. Maya had promised, though the time escaped her, when she looked up from her sketchbook and realized it was already after midnight. So the book and pencils were put aside and she had gotten into bed, soon asleep, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In her dreams, she saw more of what she had spent all evening drawing into the sketchbook. For having been so distracted, she had discovered, when staring at the first blank page of her book, that she remembered a lot more than she’d first believed. She couldn’t say where on their journey so far she had seen these things or if they even existed in one place. Maybe she had only joined several memories together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She had never known herself so taken with drawing, not until a few days ago. It had found her, it seemed, just in time. It had given her refuge, just as everything else was being taken from her. It could sustain her through tomorrow, through whatever their first days in Texas would be like. Maybe she wouldn’t start drawing New York, not unless it was really terrible out there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the morning, before they left their room behind, she made space for the sketchbook, pencils and sharpener in her backpack. As she did, she dug out her Farewell to New York sketches, sliding them into the book; that was where they belonged.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they rejoined the road, Maya watched it all go by now with a much more focused gaze. She was going to remember this, and later she could add it to her book. She could send some of these back to Riley and Farkle, they might like to see what she’d seen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She wasn’t thinking about what would happen once they reached their destination and they stayed there. Right now, she was sightseeing, on vacation, which was a rarity on its own. If she kept seeing it that way, then the dread wasn’t so present in her heart. This time she was certain she hadn’t fallen asleep, unlike the day before. Today she was wide awake, her mind’s eye seeking something to recreate.</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Her Departure From Sadness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were getting closer now. The long day’s drive, this day’s and the one before, had them both feeling exhausted and with only one wish on their minds. They wanted to arrive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Passing the state line into Texas felt like a victory in and of itself, and Maya knew it would go into her sketchbook as soon as she got a moment when she wasn’t in a bumpy car ride. This turned out to be when they had stopped at a diner. They were not in Austin yet, but their hunger had won out, and so here they were. At once, while her mother read through the menu, Maya had the book out and open to a blank page, a pencil in hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When she caught the smell of food, she looked up and found two plates waiting, each with a burger and fries. Her mother was eating, watching her. Maya closed the book, her sign almost completed, before pulling the second plate to herself. Why she had felt a flash a shyness at her mother watching her draw, she couldn’t say, but it wasn’t the only thing she noticed about the two of them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her relationship with her mother had been kind of a complicated one for a long time, ever since her father… It was hard for her to even really talk about it. Even to think about it, about her issues just made her kind of evasive. She loved her mother, that was never in question. But there was always going to be something in the way, this knowledge of how her mother had essentially driven her father away…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The last two days, it had been her mother and her, no one else around them, only strangers. That would be what Texas would be for her, for both of them. They would be the only familiar thing the other had, and already two days into it, it was not at all as she would have expected it. Maya had to wonder if a part of her had dreaded the move, beyond all the obvious reasons, for being afraid of what it would mean to be on her own with her mother this way. What if it didn’t work, what if they… didn’t work?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The last day, from the moment her mother had given her that sketchbook, had been one of her best days with her in a long time. It was so unexpected, but it was undeniable, too. Was this how it would be from now on? Or was this just a… road high? She knew what it did for her, to hope… It never worked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey…” her mother called softly, and Maya looked up. “Where’s your head at now? You were smiling a second ago, now…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s nothing, Mom. I’m just tired. My bed’s going to be there when we get to the house, right?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If all’s gone well,” her mother declared, leaving Maya’s rising skepticism an image of her sleeping on a dusty floor, shivering against the cold, dreaming of her room, in New York. There might even have been tumbleweeds rolling around her. “Hey, come on,” her mother tapped her hand, pulling her back to reality. After a moment, Maya pulled her sketchbook open, back to the page with her half-completed sign. She felt like the memory had left her, and she closed the book again. “Do you know, when I was watching you before, it was like nothing existed except you and that drawing. I waved a fry in your face and it’s a good thing I did or your food would have gone cold. But you looked happy, so that might not have been such a bad thing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know you’re trying,” Maya told her. “I am, too, I swear. It’s just… going to take me more time. But I am trying, I’ll keep trying. I want us to be happy, too. Both of us.” Her mother looked as though she might have cried, happily, and against all she’d been feeling a moment ago, it made Maya’s smile return, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Come on, let’s get out there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They got back into the rental car, and they went on their way, the last stretch before this long journey reached its conclusion. When they crossed into Austin, it was not lost on her that this was going to be her home now. She looked at it all as they rolled by. It was as far from what she had grown up knowing, and it made her feel more disoriented than ever. This wasn’t vacation anymore.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She looked back at her mother. She couldn’t think about all of that right now. She would have to focus on her mother again, like she’d done in the diner. Everything else, she would face it in the light of day. Right now, she was tired, missing home, her friends, her school… She was lost, but she had her mother. She was all she needed now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This is it,” her mother declared, as the car pulled to a stop. “This is our new home.”</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Her Departure From Before</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun had already gone down, and with no one there to turn on the lights, the little house was shrouded in shadows. If not for the pictures she’d been shown, she might not have known for sure that this was the place… and even so…</p><p> </p><p>In that moment, she attempted to channel Riley, hearing her voice in her head as she took in what she saw. What did she see… She saw a house, small, yes, but as her mother had pointed out, bigger than what they’d had before. She would hardly be one to complain about that, in fact she wouldn’t even have noted its size as small if her mother hadn’t suggested that it was, yet another reminder of her mother’s own insecurities in uprooting them.</p><p> </p><p>The first thing she really noticed, as they came up the path together, was that the house looked well looked after. She hadn’t set foot inside yet but she was almost certain she would find no holes, no leaks, nothing crooked or patched up. And through one window, she spotted a stack of familiar boxes. Their belongings had arrived. She would have a bed.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you ready?” her mother asked when they stopped on the doorstep. She pulled an envelope from her bag, letting the key slide into her hand. Maya gave her a nod, mustering up some energy for her sake. She was almost asleep on her feet.</p><p> </p><p>The door was opened, and her mother stepped in to find a light switch. Maya heard it flick on, then off, on… There was no power.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s… It’s alright, we’ll take care of that, come on, watch your step.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya walked in, her first steps tentative as she entered the house… their house… This was their home. It was pitch black, and so silently lacking in life that she felt like an intruder. This couldn’t possibly be where she belonged.</p><p> </p><p>She could hear her mother’s voice, constant, as she went off deeper into the house to look for a solution to their electric problem. She kept talking as though she wanted her to know that she was still there. Maya remained where she stood for a while, before stepping back until she stood out on the porch again… They had a porch. She wondered if they might have a swing someday. She sat on the steps, looking up at the sky.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching for her bag, she tugged the big book until it sat in her lap. Opening it up, she found her half-done Texas sign, but her hand was drawn to turn the pages until she landed on the stack of loose pages. In the moonlight, she found the faces of her friends staring back at her, and it sent her breath shuddering. She wished for them to be with her so much it ached. They were all the light she could ever need or want.</p><p> </p><p>Almost at once, she was covered in a new glow, and it took a moment for her to realize it was no magic, no wish granted. Her mother had fixed the lights.</p><p> </p><p>“Look at that,” she declared, appearing at the door with a proud smile. “Let’s call this ‘Home, take two,’” she gestured, and Maya put the book back in her bag.</p><p> </p><p>In the light, it still looked like little more than empty rooms full of boxes and displaced furniture, but then the same could be said of their old apartment before the movers had come. But if she looked past all that, maybe she could imagine what it would all look like. Just as she’d pictured from outside, on the inside it was all clean, too, nothing broken. It was a normal house… but it was theirs… all thanks to the Matthews. It would take time before it all really felt like her home.</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s my room?” she asked. Her mother held out her hand, and when Maya took it, she was led to one of the closed doors. Her mother opened it, stepping back so it was up to her to reach for the light and turn it on.</p><p> </p><p>There was her bed, all of her furniture and boxes in a sort of jumble that said the movers had no direction or idea as to where any one item was meant to go. Even so, compared to her old room, this one felt enormous, and the first thing she saw, the one that caught her by surprise, was…</p><p> </p><p>“I knew this was the right one as soon as they told me about the bay windows,” her mother proudly declared. “It was like a sign. Not that I believe too much in that kind of thing, but hey… maybe there is such a thing after all.” Maya was still just at a loss for words. “I’ll let you get settled in. If you want help moving your things around, we can do that. No downstairs neighbors to argue… or upstairs neighbors. But we have a basement… Imagine that.”</p><p> </p><p>“It can wait until tomorrow,” Maya shrugged. “I’m really tired.” Her mother gave her a hug before leaving her to her room.</p><p> </p><p>Leaving her bag on her bed, she went to the window, looking at the seat like it was nothing short of a miracle. She sat down, looking out and around. There was the ground, just outside her window. She could step right through. It was a normal thing, but to her it was strange, and new.</p><p> </p><p>She pulled the window open, letting some air in and maybe, just maybe, waiting to see if someone would crawl through to sit with her and speak with her. Wherever they were, they must have been asleep already. No one was coming.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had found her bedsheets, pillow, and pyjamas… She was all set to go and sleep, but she couldn’t do it. She laid there for what felt like an hour, tossing and turning, and as tired as she’d been, she was now wide awake.</p><p> </p><p>It was all going to happen very fast from here on out. She’d have to find her way, find who she was going to be in this place. She was supposed to start school on Monday morning. She would be ‘the new girl.’ She’d never been the new anything. She’d grown, a part of her world, and anything new that came along, it was alright. She had Riley, and Farkle, and others with them, too. Here, she was on her own. She had never felt so small.</p><p> </p><p>What was she going to do there on her own? Pay attention? Fine, maybe she did, more than she let on, but did she really want to be all star pupil and stand out that way? It felt like something in her wanted her to decide here and now, and because of that she couldn’t sleep.</p><p> </p><p>She got out of bed, finding her sketchbook and pencils and returning to the seat at her window. She opened, not to the Texas sign but to a blank new page. She started to draw, and draw, and draw.</p><p> </p><p>In the morning, she woke up, still seated in the bay window, the sketchbook in her lap. She barely remembered finishing it. The image showed her, sitting in that same window, looking out at the night sky. And somewhere, small in the distance, there was another bay window, a small dark-haired figure drawn in pencil, looking at that moon, those stars…</p><p> </p><p>Maya ripped the page from the book, careful as she could, before folding it. All she needed now was an envelope and a stamp, and she would be headed home… She, her drawn self, at least, the one who still knew who she was, knew her place in the world. Maya needed to find her own.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. His Life With Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His father had been driving him to school ever since the school year had started, ever since he’d returned from his suspension. It was his way of telling his son that he was to behave from now on. He had come so close to being thrown out of school for good, and his father wasn’t going to let him forget, as though he could ever have done so. Lucas knew how most people saw him in there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father was not a harsh man, and Lucas never doubted his love for him. He wanted to do good, and he did… he tried, so hard, only sometimes circumstances came about, and then… Well, what was he supposed to do? He never meant to disappoint him. He wanted his father to be proud of him. How many times had he done something, thinking his father would be proud of how he’d handled the situation, only to find himself on the receiving end of another disappointed look?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re better than this, Lucas,” he would say, and it would make his shoulders sag. “When you’re older, you’ll understand, this isn’t the way. I only wish you would see it now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father had so much hope for him, for his future. He saw it, and he wanted nothing more than to show him that this hope wasn’t given in vain. Instead he kept on failing, kept on disappointing him. Was he going to have to be driven in to school all through middle school, and high school… college… How long would it be before they could move past this? At least he wasn’t coming to pick him up in the afternoon. That would have been worse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mother, on the other hand, seemed to have adopted a policy of ignoring the problem. He was her little honey Luke, same as he’d always been, and so long as he wasn’t physically hurt, everything was right with the world. During his suspension, she had taken him on as her personal assistant, having him come along with her wherever she went.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father hadn’t particularly approved of all this, wanting Lucas to take this time to reflect on what he’d done, at home, to take this opportunity to concentrate on his studies. He didn’t see what she was doing, bringing him along like this, to one store or another, to this salon or that one… He didn’t know what to do with himself half the time, and he would be so relieved to return home that by the time he was allowed back to school, he could hardly wait. He would take school over that, any day of the week.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mother was as lively a woman as he’d known to exist. She never looked tired to him, and he didn’t know how she did that. Deep down though, he was impressed by her, by everything she did, and he would find himself rising to the challenge, of accomplishing whatever he set out to do, because he had learned it from her. He knew she could see that in him, and she would beam with so much pride for him all the time. Maybe that was why she didn’t worry for him nearly as much as his father did. He saw the hurdles along the road, but her, all she saw was the horizon, the finish line, where her son was exactly what she thought he had been born to become.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His parents, their presence in his life, they mattered so much to him, and he wanted them to know it. But then he’d go and do things… He’d get in trouble, he’d get suspended, and he would be left to wonder if he had any right to this belief they had in him. They would say that he was still young, that he would grow, that he would change, but was that truth or just hopeful thinking? How long did he have before this was just who he was, who he would always be?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father’s car came to a stop. They had arrived. Neither of them said a word, sitting there side by side. What could his father tell him that he hadn’t already told him a thousand times? What could he tell his father that he hadn’t tried to tell him for just as many times, if not more? It was all there in the silence. Be good, do good, try harder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll see you tonight,” his father said when he opened the door to climb out of the car. Lucas pulled his bag over his shoulder, looking back at him with a nod before shutting the door.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father drove away, and for a moment Lucas stood there, watching him go. This would be a good day, he told himself. All would be well. He had to believe it, even if sometimes that wasn’t how it always turned out. He was his own person, but he was their son, too, and he wanted them to keep on being who he was to them. He never wanted to see the day where he did something so bad that he had to leave his whole world behind and start again.</p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. His Life With Asher & Dylan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For all the last months had been, they had been saved in one thing, and that was how his friends had kept to his side. They could easily have left him behind, and instead they had never felt closer to him. If one good thing had come out of all this, it was that after years of being one year ahead of them, they were all on the same level.</p><p> </p><p>As he neared his locker, he found two of his friends across the hall and veered in their direction. Asher and Dylan had known each other longer than he had known either of them, had been friends from the start. As close as their group was, there were some closer to others. Asher and Dylan might have been the closest of all, something that earned them loads of playful teasing over time, all of it taken in equal amounts of amusement.</p><p> </p><p>Asher might have been the smartest of all of them. He didn’t carry himself in any way one might have expected someone to behave, with the solid grades he got. There was a rumor going around that Asher and his twin brother Joey – who went to a different school – would trade places when it was convenient to either of them. Lucas, like the rest of them, knew very well Joey Garcia had nothing on Asher. But Asher would have as much fun with this as he did his bond to Dylan. He would show up some days and play up the possibility he might be Joey. They would love nothing more than to mess around and play along, too.</p><p> </p><p>And Dylan was just… well, he was Dylan. Ever since they’d been little, he had been the one they could convince to do anything, from going off to play, to eating something nasty. They would never take it so far as to abuse this trust, and anyone who’d try would have to answer to Asher above all, but to all of them as well. Dylan Orlando was one of the best friends you could have, and no one would mess with him.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Dylan greeted him as he approached, smiling as he always would, looking halfway distracted. “You coming over after school?” Lucas gave him a nod, not thinking too much about how Mrs. Orlando would look at him like he was trouble as soon as he came through the door. In the time he’d been under suspension, he had gone out of his way not to hang out there too much.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to fix the hoop,” Asher told him. “Last time it almost fell on my head.” Lucas chuckled, remembering the way he’d shrieked.</p><p> </p><p>Having those two around, he could always trust in the knowledge that he would be having a good time, and that he wouldn’t end up thinking about whatever part of his life that might have been bothering him. They had this air about them that made them look like no one had ever belonged to this place more than they did. Maybe it was how they came as a unit, always. They could have been more believable twin brothers than Asher and Joey Garcia. They were their own group within their group, and Lucas would have regretted the day he ever had to leave them behind.</p><p> </p><p>That afternoon, he followed the rest of them to the Orlando house where, after watching Asher and Dylan argue on the best method to fix the hoop, he had gone on ahead and dealt with it himself. Before long, it was back as it was meant to be, and they were ready to play. They were joined by Dylan’s older brother Kyle to make it three on three. It was never going to be a fair game, with Kyle the star athlete among them, but Lucas enjoyed the challenge anytime he found himself on the opposite team, which was most times.</p><p> </p><p>When the game had ended – Asher and the Orlando brothers had won – Lucas had not been long there before he started on his way back home. He could see Mrs. Orlando watching from the window ever since she’d come back from work. Dylan would defend Lucas whenever she’d say anything. He’d overheard them once or twice, and Asher had told him about it on other occasions. He didn’t know that she would ever change her mind about him, but he still appreciated his friend’s gesture. It was one of the biggest reasons why he even still went to the Orlandos’ house.</p><p> </p><p>“Just ignore her,” Asher would tell him, and Lucas would say that he would do just that, but he could never do it. How could he pretend as though he didn’t see or hear her? He was already assuming the only reason she still allowed him to come was for Dylan’s sake, or possibly so that she might keep displaying her disapproval.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t ignore her, any more than he could ignore the others. To the people in the area, he was whoever they chose to see him as. To some he was trouble, to others he was anything but. But it wasn’t so bad, he guessed, so long as his friends were around him. And with Asher and Dylan there with him, he was right where he could want to be.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. His Life With Z & Z</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His father dropped him off at school again the next day, in much the same awkward send off as the days before. A part of him wanted to confide in his father or mother about the insecurities he felt, the way some people would respond to him, but he didn’t see how he could. His mother would tell him that it would all be alright in the end, that he only had to be who he really was, or something like that. And his father, he would no doubt tell him he had brought this on himself, and he needed to handle it.</p><p> </p><p>Walking into class, he took his seat only seconds before Nadine and Zay dropped in on either side of him.</p><p> </p><p>“Someone is looking mighty grumpy this morning. Listen, man, I know Asher and the Orlandos owned us yesterday, but that was one game,” Zay told him, his tone as casual as it ever was. As much as Asher and Dylan had each other, he had Zay Babineaux, and this friendship of years had seen his highest highs and lowest lows. Sitting here now, Lucas knew he would not leave him there with a frown, and in time the ride with his father drifted off. Zay would look at him now with the satisfaction of a job well done.</p><p> </p><p>“You can have Kyle next time,” Nadine offered to him and Zay both, like a mother trying to cheer up her two moping little boys. It was sarcasm, shown in the glimmering smirk that followed. Zay gave mock insult, while Lucas had to chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>That was Nadine Zhu, always. She’d moved from across town and into their school back in the fifth grade, where she’d met Zay, Asher, and Dylan. In no time, she had gone and melded with the four of them, her being the lone girl never making any of them bat an eye, although as they grew now, some among them – Asher in particular – would look upon her as some kind of secret weapon, an eye into Girl World. Nadine was hardly one to let herself be used and they knew if they demanded too much of her, she would not be above pranking them with bad intel, as Asher had learned, giving the rest of them a good laugh.</p><p> </p><p>Those two may not have had the years Asher and Dylan had already had, or those he and Zay did, but when she’d come along, Zay had been the one to usher her into the group, looking after her as an older brother might a little sister, which would have had more to do with stature than age, as Nadine was just two months older than him. One way or the other, they were Zay and Zhu, Z and Z. He’d call her Little Z, and she would call him Tall Z. As their group went, as friends, it was often Lucas and Zay, Asher and Dylan, while Nadine just went wherever she chose to go.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we’re ignoring the bigger issue here, Little Z,” Zay pointed to Nadine. “We’d be too good. That’s alright though, I’ll go with Ash and D…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you think so?” she gasped and laughed. “You hear that, Lucas? Mr. Babineaux thinks he’s a superstar. Wasn’t he the one who tripped over a twig yesterday?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was a <em>branch.</em> A big one. You saw, right?” Zay tapped his arm. Lucas sat back, holding his hands out in surrender. He wasn’t going to get in the middle of this. Just watching the two of them argue it out was plenty entertaining, and he had forgotten all about the car ride, and even about Mrs. Orlando. He wouldn’t need to say that of the five of them Kyle Orlando’s match was tiny Nadine Zhu herself. She would holler, and Zay would act like he hadn’t heard a word.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay, look,” he did speak up, finally, when a girl walked into class. When his friend saw her, he sat up rod straight, his eyes following her as she went and sat with her friends.</p><p> </p><p>“You know she’s never going to know you exist unless you go over there and say ‘Hello, Vanessa, I like you’ or something like that. Right now, you’re just some weirdo who stares at her… like, all the time,” Nadine whispered at him across Lucas’ desk.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s just going to be staring at her from closer if he does that, he can’t speak to her,” Lucas put in. Nadine smirked as Zay turned back to them, trying to look as cool as he could, even though he still had ‘Vanessa face.’</p><p> </p><p>Zay wouldn’t make his move, not today or any day for a while, by the looks of him. He put on a good game, but he would never have managed it. Lucas thought of Nadine, who had held her crush on him in secret for so long and likely would have kept holding it if Zay hadn’t let it slip. She didn’t have those feelings anymore, but that wasn’t the point. If <em>she</em> hadn’t managed to tell him, then Zay would likely never speak up to Vanessa.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. His Life With School</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His father dropped him off early. For the next few Friday mornings, he still had to sit with the guidance counselor before classes started. He hated it, but he had no choice, and really if it was this or getting kicked out of school, which he saw as consequence to his stepping out of line, then he’d just have to go and sit, listening to old Mrs. Whitley as she talked at him, never leaving him a moment to put a word in or realizing she was essentially repeating herself every single week.</p><p> </p><p>This was what he had become to these people, wasn’t it? He was a problem, trouble. And at some point, Lucas had understood this, as he’d also understood that it wasn’t what he was or wanted to be. So why couldn’t they see that?</p><p> </p><p>The one place where this seemed to change was when he’d be in baseball mode, or basketball… His coach would stand by him, and might have played a part in his still being in school here. It could have been reassuring if he didn’t know deep down the man wouldn’t have moved a muscle for him if he wasn’t an asset to the team. But he was, and so as far as the coach was concerned, he was right where he belonged. It made the games lose some of their fun.</p><p> </p><p>More and more it felt as though he didn’t know his place here anymore. He did well enough in class, not the top of his grade but still well up there. He remembered a couple years back how they would praise him. They would send letters to his parents congratulating him on his accomplishments and suggesting more ways for him to go and excel. When they would return from parent-teacher nights, his mother and father would be all smiles. His mother would declare they’d have his favorite meal the next night, while his father would press his hands to his shoulders, telling him how proud he was.</p><p> </p><p>He still got those same grades today, for subjects more advanced of course. He still gave that same amount of focus and dedication. But everything else had changed and now it seemed as though no one noticed or cared that he was doing well, even despite his long suspension. Now the letters that came were about things that he had done, things he was to be reprimanded for. He wasn’t denying that he had done these things, most of them. There were some incidents he had been blamed for and assumed guilty of solely on reputation, even though he’d been innocent. And other events, those he couldn’t be entirely excused from, but… well, he’d had reasons. They’d been good reasons, or he’d thought they were good, but now… he just didn’t know anymore.</p><p> </p><p>Was he really just what they said he was? How often had he been told that he was just a kid, that he needed to be told how to behave? Maybe he did. But… All he’d ever done was to look out for people, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t they see that?</p><p> </p><p>When his session with the counselor had ended, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He went and waited for his friends. He didn’t know what he would have done without them, truly. Walking through the halls with these four people who had never once lost faith in him or tried to write him off, it had and still meant the world to him. When he found himself doubting who he was, he only had to look to Zay, to Asher and Dylan, to Nadine. They would remind him without having to say a single word about it.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting in class, he would do as he’d always done. He may have been one thing to some of these people, but he was something else to his friends, something important. He was himself.</p><p> </p><p>At lunch time, in the chaos of noise in the cafeteria, he briefly heard Zay tell them how he’d been called on to play guide to a new student coming in on Monday morning, sounding all proud about it and earning himself some of Nadine and Asher teasing him, sending the table in chuckles. But Lucas tuned them out after a while, his mind wandering to something he had been considering.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he should quit the team. The coach may have been his crutch to staying in this school, but the games just didn’t bring him anything anymore. And it wasn’t as though his prospects would be in peril without it. He could hear his parents in his head though, telling him that it wouldn’t come off any better if he went and quit, so he might as well stick with it.</p><p> </p><p>He needed a change. Something had to come, anything, to make him stop feeling this way. He never wanted to have to start over, but the way things were going now, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. He had the weekend ahead of him now. Maybe he could find his answer there.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. His Life With Himself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Saturday morning meant chores. Lucas started well and early, all the better to give him time to think. He knew what a boy his age would be expected to have on his mind, and much as that was in there, somewhere, at this point it was anything but. What he had on his mind now was reinvention.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t going to go and change himself completely. Despite what some people may have thought of him, he didn’t think he needed to go for a blank slate. What he wanted was to be someone they didn’t feel the need to shadow, as though he would do something bad the moment they left him unsupervised. How he was meant to do this, he couldn’t say. Since the start of the year and his return, he had been on his absolute best behavior. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for them.</p><p> </p><p>Would he have to make some kind of public showing of it? Stand up in class, declare how much he knew he had done wrong, that he had seen the error of his way and he wanted to change? Was that what it would take? Him presenting himself as the boy they all seemed to see? He wasn’t him, didn’t think he was, but if this was what it took then what other option did he have? They weren’t seeing him now, and they were going to have to, if he had any hope…</p><p> </p><p>He was cleaning his room when the thought came to him, the memory of what Zay had been telling them about in the cafeteria. The new kid. He was asked to show him or her around, be of help, as was custom. So what if he got to do it in Zay’s place? It would take some convincing with the principal as much as with Zay, but if he could convince them to do it…</p><p> </p><p>With that thought in mind, he started to feel like maybe he had a shot at making this work. It wouldn’t even just have to be about remaking his image either. He wanted to do this, to be helpful to someone who had no expectations of him. It just might help him in return, remind him of what he felt that he had lost.</p><p> </p><p>It was strange how sudden the change could come. He still hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, but the potential was enough that he flew through the rest of his chores, as though it would take him to Monday morning faster. The next day he would speak with Zay, convince him to pass up the task to him. He knew how proud his friend had been, but he also knew that his friend cared for him very much, and he was the kind of person who, given reason enough, would do what was needed to help his best friend. Maybe he’d throw in the chance of teaming up with Kyle Orlando <em>and</em> Nadine the next time they all played, just to sweeten the deal.</p><p> </p><p>If this was going to work, he was going to need one more thing. He went to see his father, asking if he might go back to riding the bus to school instead of being driven in by him. He told him how he wanted people to see that he was changing, that he wouldn’t be able to do that with his father escorting him to school every morning as he’d been doing.</p><p> </p><p>His father had looked at him straight on, silent, for what felt like an eternity. Lucas didn’t avert his eyes, held his gaze and waited. Finally, his father made a deal with him. He would let him ride to school on his own for the next week. If all went well, he would let him continue on this way. If at any time he doubted this though, he would resume his post and keep on driving him until such a time as he felt it was no longer necessary. Lucas accepted the deal at once. His father was giving him a shot, and that was all that he needed.</p><p> </p><p>That was one hurdle passed. The others would be more difficult, each more than the last, he knew. This would be worth it, he could feel it. This was who he was, and they had to see it. He had never known insecurity as much as he’d done since his suspension, and knowing that most people either didn’t see it or didn’t care to see it only made it that much stronger of an impact on him.</p><p> </p><p>He spent most of the rest of the day working out what he would do and say when faced with both Zay and the principal. He was only going to get one shot at this, and if it didn’t work he would be going right back to the bottom of the heap, with even less of a way to pull himself out again.</p><p> </p><p>No. He wasn’t going to fail. He knew who he was, and he could do this. Monday would be the day where he started to get his life back. He’d spent too much time letting things get taken from him, things he’d worked hard to get. He might have only been fourteen years old, but that didn’t have to stop him, did it? As much as he was doing this for himself, as he should be doing it for those reasons, he knew he also wanted to make them all proud of him again, and none more than his mother and father.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. His Life With Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunday came around, and after lunch Lucas made for Nadine’s house. The four of them boys converging and landing on their friend’s doorstep might not have sat well with many a parent, fathers in particular, but Mr. and Mrs. Zhu had known them in the time since they’d come into their daughter’s life, and by now they had come to the conclusion that they had nothing to concern themselves over where Lucas, Zay, Dylan or Asher were involved. Even so, they suspected Nadine’s little sisters popping in now and then might have been the parents’ way of covering their bases.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had told the others to go on ahead, holding Zay back with him. Seeing the confusion on his friend’s face, he didn’t beat around the bush. He told Zay how he needed to prove to people that he wasn’t what they thought he was, and that he had gotten the perfect idea of how he was going to do that.</p><p> </p><p>“I need you to let me take over guiding the new kid tomorrow,” he revealed. As suspected, Zay’s initial response was one of shock, of resistance. He had been chosen for the task after all. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important. You know it is, I’ve told you…” He’d been the only one. It showed.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, I guess,” Zay sighed. “But you owe me. And I’m going to collect. You can’t say no,” Zay warned. Lucas laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t,” he held out his hand, and his best friend clasped it. “Thanks. Really, it means a lot, especially since I’ll need you to come and tell the principal you agreed, probably." Zay frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“Big owe,” he clarified, and Lucas agreed again. After this deal was made, they had finally gone to join the rest of their friends.</p><p> </p><p>They couldn’t have been more than two minutes ahead of them and still by the time Lucas and Zay found them, they were having a race, Asher and Dylan running about, one with Marley Zhu on his back, the other with the youngest Zhu, Michaela, on his own, while Nadine sat up on the couch hounding the ‘ponies’ on. Asher looked mildly annoyed but just as determined to win, while Dylan was clearly having the time of his life as much as the seven-year-old on his back.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I don’t even know what to say about that…” Zay spoke first, making Lucas smirk. In the end, Dylan and Michaela won, later a contested victory by Asher, whose jockey had been bigger than his friend’s. There would be no change, and the afternoon was for the most part a celebration of the win. Asher’s frustration had not lasted, could never where Dylan was involved, and Lucas went home that night still smiling to himself.</p><p> </p><p>It reminded him of so many days hanging out with those four, especially over his suspension. They had done more for him than he believed they even realized. He wasn’t worried when it was just all of them together, didn’t think about the parts of his life that concerned him so much lately.</p><p> </p><p>Now that he was going home again, on his own, with the next day so close by already, he didn’t have that ability anymore. Now the next day was all he could think about. Somehow, the next day was going to affect his life, change it, for better or for worse. He honestly believed it. He could be made the new kid’s guide and do well… or not… and he could be told no, too. Whatever the outcome was, it would direct his life down whatever path each option entailed. It would be near impossible for anyone not to be at least a little nervous about that.</p><p> </p><p>When they’d told Nadine, Asher and Dylan about the guide swap, they had seemed more impressed with Zay than when he’d told them he’d been picked, which might have thrown him except he’d rolled right on with it. He was doing a noble act. The ‘big owe’ was kept quiet between Lucas and Zay.</p><p> </p><p>Having been discussed so much in the last few days, there was now a fair amount of curiosity rising with regards to this new student coming into their midst the next morning. If he thought about it, Lucas might have been more curious about who this person would be. It was one thing to offer to be their guide, but what if this kid was impossible, made him react in any way that would sooner sink him than help him to the surface?</p><p> </p><p>He would just have to wait and see. Whatever he or she was, he would have to deal with it. He would do as he’d set out to do, he had to. It would go well, it would. This was really not keeping him wide awake that night as he tried to sleep. It was just hot. He got the window open, settled down again and took a breath. Tomorrow, he was taking the bus.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. His Life With the New Girl</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Monday morning came, and bright and early there he was, sitting on the bus that would take him to school. He knew what was ahead of him, but he was very much on the side of confidence; he had to be. Zay came on the bus a few stops later, dropping in to sit next to him as they had done back before his suspension, and the ensuing rides from his father. This was his life taking the turn toward normal, to what it had been, he felt it. It gave him courage.</p><p> </p><p>They arrived at school, finding the halls still near deserted, and made for the administrative office. The secretary was there, working away, and when they asked to see the principal, she stared at the both of them in silence for a beat before calling in to the office. One short, hushed conversation later, she hung up and pointed to the principal’s door without a word. Lucas gave her his thanks, followed by Zay, and they went on to see the principal.</p><p> </p><p>He looked as clueless as the secretary had done, wondering what brought the two of them in that morning. Zay looked at him. He was only there to say his bit when the time would come, and it had not come yet. So they sat across the man’s desk, and when prompted to speak, Lucas sat up and went into his request.</p><p> </p><p>“Sir, I know you’ve asked Zay to help a new student who’s coming here today. I want to ask if you would let me do it instead.” The principal didn’t speak yet, only looked at him, which he took as his cue to keep talking. “After my suspension, I’ve been thinking about how I got there, and now… I just want a chance to prove myself.” The principal looked at him a few seconds more before looking at Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“I already said I’d be okay with it,” he nodded. “And thank you. I can get the next one,” he promised and sat back. “You don’t have another one in there, do you?” Lucas threw him a look, afraid the principal might toss them both out and get the new kid a brand new guide. But then he had told Zay to go on and get to class in time before telling Lucas to sit outside and wait there. He didn’t know if this meant a yes, or if he was considering it, but he would just have to wait and see.</p><p> </p><p>Though he had been dismissed, Zay had quickly returned and taken a seat next to Lucas outside the office when he had remembered it was still early and, without him there, he had nothing better to do. Plus, he wanted to see the new kid.</p><p> </p><p>They still had nothing to go on, and it was a few minutes more before he heard something that made him sure the new kid was arriving… There was a woman’s voice commenting on the fall display they all mostly ignored when walking past the office. She had that sort of pointed interest in her voice that parents would get when they tried to get their kids interested in something. His mother was a pro at it, but this one had her beat. And then…</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, stop,” a girl’s voice begged. “You don’t have to come with me everywhere.”</p><p> </p><p>“I need to meet with the principal, I won’t be long and then I’ll be out of your hair. Just wait out here a minute, alright?” the woman appeared in the door, and Lucas watched her a moment before his eyes went seeking for the girl he was to be guiding. Stood behind her mother, he couldn’t see much of her yet, except for a flash of blond hair and a noted brightness to the colors she wore, not overpowering, just… alive. She looked uncomfortable, standing there with her mother, and he couldn’t blame her, felt more sympathy than anything else.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, is that her?” Zay asked him in a hush that wasn’t so hushed in the quiet room.</p><p> </p><p>The girl turned her head in their direction, letting them see her face. Lucas didn’t know what he expected. All he knew was that he had forgotten what he’d been thinking about, and in the next moment she was sitting in the last chair available, which was next to Zay, who took this as his cue to seek introductions as the girl’s mother moved into the principal’s office, leaving them there.</p><p> </p><p>“New kid, hello. Isaiah Babineaux,” he gave her a wave. “Zay,” he added. “My tall, silent friend here is Lucas Friar. And who might you be?” The girl blinked, looking from Zay to Lucas and back.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya,” she told them. “Maya Hart.” She didn’t look too keen on starting up a conversation, and Lucas didn’t know what motivated him more, this feeling like he understood what was on her mind, or the desire to take up the task and the responsibility he’d requested from the principal, but he gave Zay a nudge of the elbow. Zay turned, looked at him for a moment, then, thankfully catching on, turned back to the girl.</p><p> </p><p>“I have to go now. I’ll see you in class.” He paused, nodded to himself. “Alright.” And he got up and left. Now it was just them, with an empty chair in between. Was he supposed to move over, or would that give the wrong impression?</p><p> </p><p>“You just moved here?” he eventually asked. She looked at him. “Where from?”</p><p> </p><p>“New York,” she told him. She didn’t look any more sure than he did, and again he understood.</p><p> </p><p>“That has to be a big change then. It can’t be all that different, I mean… school, home… homework… But I’ll help you with that,” he nodded, then, off her confused look, “Oh, I’m supposed to be like your guide, so you can just… get to know the place. Whatever you need…”</p><p> </p><p>“Ride back to New York?” she casually asked, and he had to smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t exactly have a license yet, but if that’s what you need, then I’ll just have to think of something. Although it might not be so bad if you stuck around here, give us a chance.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure you’re a good little cowboy, but I don’t see you climbing yourself out of this one,” she told him, and someone else might have been deflated by this, but he instead rose to the challenge.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I do have a mean rope trick,” he confessed and, to his relief, it produced the first tentative smile to come out of her. Just as he saw it, and matched it with a smile of his own, he spotted Zay out in the hall, waiting, along with the rest of their group. When they caught him looking, they scattered at once. Zay must have told them about the new girl.</p><p> </p><p>When the principal and the new girl’s mother came out of the office, Lucas finally received confirmation that he was to act as guide. The girl’s mother gave him a look she carried over to her daughter which somehow made both of them – her and Lucas – flush in awkwardness. But by the time her mother had left, the new girl seemed to have eased into his presence at her side.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, right?” she asked, and he nodded. “Maya,” she reintroduced herself. He smiled.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Her Introduction to a New World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Monday morning… how was it Monday morning already? How was it that they had already been in their new home in Texas for three days? How was it that she both felt as though she had been back in New York an instant and an eternity ago? And now… she had to go to school, a new school she had never seen, much less set foot inside, with teachers and kids she didn’t know… As much as she’d been known for being tough, and brave, the prospect of it all only made her feel absolutely terrified and cowardly.</p><p> </p><p>She looked around her room, still curled up in her bed. Over the past few days, their little house had changed a lot, as both she and her mother went about unpacking, making it their own. The walls were all a fresh and clean white for the time being, though her mother promised her some color in the future. And while her mother had been busily arranging the rest of the house, Maya had focused on making this room feel like it belonged to her, like it was her space.</p><p> </p><p>It was bigger than her old room, and where that room had felt sort of cramped, this one saw her furniture get all the space it might have wanted, to the point where it looked halfway empty. She could add things… later… maybe. She had never exactly been in the habit of thinking too far ahead. And for the time being, she might have enjoyed this openness just as it was. Her walls made up for it soon enough, with a few pages from her sketchbook. She tried not to take too much from it, having already pressed a sort of precious quality to it for what it had been doing for her. She also added some of the free pages stuck there in between, her New York memories. It all looked so neat, gave the room life… it was perfect.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, are you awake? Time to get ready, I have to go and meet the principal!” her mother’s voice called out, startling her out of her thoughts. She sat up in her bed. Principal… School… This was it.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t spent much time out of the house since they’d arrived, except to go and sit in the yard… They had a yard… But she had gone on a few errands with her mother, which had gotten her to see some bits of the city, especially now that the rental car had been returned. Even so, the trip to school was the furthest she had gone since they’d arrived, and it felt like the first time she really… existed… as a resident of the city of Austin. And she felt so out of place.</p><p> </p><p>This was never so strong a feeling as when she and her mother arrived in front of the school. She didn’t know how she’d managed it, but her mother already sort of looked like she belonged here, while Maya seemed to have New York stamped on her forehead. It had never felt to her like anything but a good thing, until this very moment. She could see some of the kids looking at her, and as hard as she tried to muster up her Maya Mode, it wouldn’t come. All she could do was follow her mother.</p><p> </p><p>It was still early, so there weren’t so many people around yet, which could have been a good thing if not for the way her mother seemed bent on selling how great the school was to her. She’d point out signs on the walls, advertising this club or that event, and she’d get caught up in admiring the decorations, as though it would all make her feel at ease all of a sudden. It was the first time she missed her room, her new room.</p><p> </p><p>“Look at this, the Fall Festival,” her mother pointed out as they neared the principal’s office. The wall was plastered in paper leaves of a multitude of shapes and colors, all to highlight a large sign. “That sounds like something fun, right? I remember when I was in middle school…”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, stop…” she sighed, looking around. “You don’t have to come with me everywhere…” she told her, already imagining Katy Hart at the Fall Festival, in full Texas splendor.</p><p> </p><p>“I need to meet with the principal, I won’t be long and then I’ll be out of your hair. Just wait out here a minute, alright?” her mother told her and they walked in. Still, she kept to her side as her mother announced their arrival to the secretary, who called in to the principal. Maya didn’t know what to make of this feeling that persisted in her chest, of not belonging, of having no anchor to make her feel like she might actually feel normal again or…</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, is that her?” The voice, a whisper made loud in the silence of the room, made her turn around on reflex, and she discovered a pair of boys sitting there, staring back at her. She wondered how long they’d already been staring.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Her Introduction to the Cowboy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She soon found herself sitting with the two boys, as her mother disappeared into the principal’s office. She didn’t know what to do with herself for a moment, until the boy next to her started talking. He introduced himself as Isaiah – Zay – before indicating the second boy. Lucas, that was his name, and Maya’s eyes briefly met his before she was prompted to introduce herself in return. Once that was done, she didn’t know what to do with herself. There was still the overpowering feeling in her that she would have rather been in any other place but this one, and as nice as these two might have been discovered to be if she let them go on, she just didn’t feel all that keen on giving it a try. She wanted to get on with… whatever this day would be.</p><p> </p><p>Soon the first boy had just up and left, leaving her alone with his friend and the empty chair in between. Seconds passed by, silence settling enough that she could vaguely make out her mother’s voice through the principal’s office door. She tried not to think too much about what she might have been saying in there, about her, or herself, or…</p><p> </p><p>“You just moved here?” It took her a moment to register the new voice directed at her, but then she turned to find the boy looking at her… again. “Where from?”</p><p> </p><p>“New York,” she answered easily, the question being possibly one of the only ones she knew she could answer with confidence these days. If he’d asked if she liked it here she would probably have stared back blankly and looked like a weirdo.</p><p> </p><p>“That has to be a big change then,” he said instead, and it surprised her that this response sat so well with her. “It can’t be all that different, I mean… school, home… homework… But I’ll help you with that,” he went on, and now he’d lost her. What was he saying, did he think she couldn’t do her homework? That might have been debatable, but he didn’t know that, did he? “Oh, I’m supposed to be like your guide, so you can just… get to know the place. Whatever you need…” That made more sense, and she calmed down, although all it did was conjure up more images in her head… Home…</p><p> </p><p>“Ride back to New York?” she asked, her thoughts still far out there, so much she barely caught the way he smiled at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t exactly have a license yet, but if that’s what you need, then I’ll just have to think of something. Although it might not be so bad if you stuck around here, give us a chance.” She didn’t know if it was the morning light washing the room in gold, or the way he spoke to her, but the image it conjured in her head had him perched on a horse, a hat tipped on his head.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure you’re a good little cowboy, but I don’t see you climbing yourself out of this one,” she shrugged. He didn’t look thrown even a blink.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I do have a mean rope trick,” he told her, and in an instant she could feel her face relaxing into something near to a smile. She didn’t know what made her able to speak or really just react to him, but she forgot about wanting to run back to hide in her room, and that was saying something.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered where she was when she saw her mother and the principal step out of the office. She sat up, not wanting her mother to see her with this boy and start to get any ideas. That plan was tanked as the two of them came up to her and the boy. The principal told her and her mother how the boy was to be her guide, for as long as she needed him. She watched her mother’s eyes travel between the pair of them, and now she was ready to disappear all over again. She also picked up something in the way the principal looked to her guide, but whatever impression she got, she quickly set it aside.</p><p> </p><p>“Have a good day at school, baby girl,” her mother pressed her hands to her cheeks with a smile before leaving her once again alone with the boy, and she couldn’t deny she was relieved when this happened. Now she knew someone… sort of.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, right?” she asked. He nodded. “Maya,” she told him, officially. He smiled now, and she held on to what precious energy and drive his presence had given her. “English now,” she read off the schedule she’d been handed before she could show him the sheet. He leaned in to see.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s where I’m going, too. I’ll show you to your locker first,” he got up, and she did the same. He was so much taller than her, an easy feat, sure, but even so she had to stop and take notice. He was in her grade? He looked older. She might have asked, once, but this rampant insecurity she was stuck with kept her quiet, for fear he might take it the wrong way and not stay with her anymore. In time she might end up asking him. For now, she only followed quietly.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Her Introduction to School</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time she had found her locker, she had seen so many pairs of eyes turned to her and Lucas as they’d gone by that she wasn’t sure anymore if people were staring at her because she was new to them, or if it was him that had their attention. Even he looked slightly off-put, and when he looked back at her, she turned to her open locker, dumped in her things and shut the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Guide Boy, where are we going?” she nodded, trying to change the subject as casually as possible. He stared for a moment before pointing down the hall, walking on and letting her follow.</p><p> </p><p>She was shown the cafeteria, the library, and where the bathrooms were, before their tour was interrupted. Maya had spotted the other boy from earlier, following after them since they’d passed him outside the library.</p><p> </p><p>“Friend of yours?” she asked Lucas, who saw him now and threw him a look that made her think this might not have been the first time he’d been caught hanging about. The guy didn’t look bothered. He only gave a good smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“The best,” he told her, looking over to Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>There was some kind of conversation happening between the two friends, and as much as she couldn’t read into their silences, she saw the two of them and she thought of Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“We were just heading to class now,” Lucas finally spoke up and, now joined by Zay, they continued down the hall.</p><p> </p><p>Maya knew she wasn’t entirely being herself at the moment, that she just wasn’t able to be, and it made her both aware and uneasy of the knowledge that this was the version of her that people would get to know. Was this who she was going to have to be from now on? This quiet girl?</p><p> </p><p>“New York? Long way,” Zay spoke, and she wondered how long they’d been talking while she was off in her mind. He must have asked where she was from, leaving Lucas to reply when she said nothing.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we drove for two days coming here,” she told them both. They would ask about her family if she said nothing else. She didn’t want that, not now. “How long have you been friends?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, years,” Zay replied, before Lucas could speak. “This guy, I mean… What can I say?” He paused, and Maya turned back to Lucas, finding him just as curious for what the other boy could say. “You can’t go wrong,” Zay finally declared, and Maya knew now more than ever that the two would be a packaged deal, which might not have been a bad thing.</p><p> </p><p>“Why were you at the office earlier?” Maya asked, now curious. She couldn’t chase the impression there’d been a reason. Zay looked to Lucas at once.</p><p> </p><p>“He was going to be the one guiding you, but…”</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t do it,” Zay cut in, “I thought I had the time, but… Good thing Lucas here agreed to take my place. Like I said, you’re in good hands. So, New York… How’s the pizza?”</p><p> </p><p>The mystery only seemed to be growing at every turn, and she could have minded it, but in that moment she honestly didn’t. There was nothing here to suggest she might have been getting the wrong impression about these guys, and as much as her personal sense of self may have been experiencing some discord, her ‘people gut’ was good and intact. When Zay gave Lucas praise, she knew it was the truth, just as much as she knew that was the kind of guy Zay was, too. She was starting to feel like they might have been friends, given the chance.</p><p> </p><p>They made their way to the English classroom, and maybe Lucas’ earlier statement as to the inevitable sameness of one school and another wasn’t too far off the truth. She would need time to adjust, much more than what she’d had already, but her earlier apprehension had started to shrink away, and she felt as though she could breathe more easily all of a sudden.</p><p> </p><p>Talking about New York was only bound to make her think about Riley, and Farkle, and the rest of the people she’d left behind back there. Right about now they’d be in school, same as she was, maybe even thinking about her, same as she was thinking about them. After a while it made her flow of words crawl to a stop. But then the boys picked it right up, telling her about some of their favorite places to eat. Before she knew it, she had an invitation to join them at one of those on the coming weekend.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Her Introduction to Class</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was one thing to go to school, another to go to class. Her going into a new school would be rough, and so far it had been… mostly. It was requiring her to find her footing in this new world of hers. But class… Either here or in New York, class was all on her, depended on her own abilities.</p><p> </p><p>At home… and it was still what she saw when she thought of home… her presence in class was not so strong, though she tried, sometimes more than others. She struggled on her own, and she didn’t want people to see, to let it dictate how they saw her. These people here, they didn’t know her yet, the teachers, the students… At home she had the benefit of years, of growing up with the people around her, and letting her reputation precede her, letting her decide how she was going to be seen.</p><p> </p><p>What would happen if they saw her fail, just out of the gate? The thought of it caught her off guard, and she found the idea of sitting quietly without drawing attention to herself might have been her best…</p><p> </p><p>“Right in here,” Lucas’ voice startled her back and she blinked, seeing they had arrived at a classroom. Just as they were stepping through the door, a boy saw them and waved, causing a second boy to turn and give them a nod. “They’re with us,” Lucas explained. “That’s Dylan, and Asher,” he pointed to the first boy and then the second, walking toward them. Zay was following, so she figured she might as well do the same. Bit by bit, her little circle was growing.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t know ‘new kid’ meant ‘new girl,’” Asher stood from his chair as the trio approached. “Hey,” he greeted her, and she hesitated to reply as she wondered if he was just playing around or not, leaving Lucas to speak before she could gather up the words.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys, this is Maya. She just moved here from New York,” he told the pair of them. When he looked back at her, he gave her a look she soon interpreted as his telling her she was among friends. She would need time to get to know them, as much as she would need to get to know the others, but now she was looking at both Asher and Dylan and she saw just a couple of guys she could learn to appreciate, too.</p><p> </p><p>Too… She kept on looking at Lucas, wondering how it was that in a matter of minutes she had started relying on him so much. Maybe it was just the necessities of her condition. She was shipwrecked at sea, far from her people, and this boy had come in like a calming wave. But wasn’t she still drowning?</p><p> </p><p>Zay was telling the boys how Maya had been invited to join them and hang out over the weekend. They looked happy to hear it, and suddenly they were all talking over each other, telling her about their favorite spots, and about ‘this one time’ and ‘that other time,’ and she was looking from one to the other with all the energy they exuded swirling around her… She didn’t know that she could have wanted to be anywhere else in that moment.</p><p> </p><p>Even as they waited for their teacher, for the rest of the class, they were seeing to some strategic rearrangements in the seating order, so that Maya would be seated with Lucas in front of her, and Zay behind, while Asher was at her right, Dylan behind him. The others in the class were looking at them every so often, some of them calling out introductions.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t forgotten about those curiosities she’d had over Lucas, the things she felt were being kept from her, and she was seeing it again here, but maybe she didn’t care so much anymore, not as much as she did the feeling she got with the four of them sat around her.</p><p> </p><p>She asked them about their teacher. She had to know who she would be dealing with, what it would be like and if she would rise or fall. Their English teacher, Miss Alcott, was new to the school, too, as she learned, and they were still getting to know her, but she so far seemed nice. She wasn’t there yet, and Maya hoped she came soon, so she could get a look at her before class started. Already, they told her they were halfway through covering a book, which would mean she’d have to catch up, and it was making her anxious.</p><p> </p><p>Snatching Zay’s copy off his desk, she tried to start reading some of it, as though she would magically be caught up before their teacher had arrived. She didn’t know when the shift had come, but she knew she did not want to be seen to fail here. She wanted to do well. She didn’t know if she would succeed, but right now she had determination on her side, determination and new friends.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Her Introduction to the Group</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their English teacher was slow to arrive, bordering on late according to the boys, who told Maya she was usually in the room before anyone else. Stories began to be thrown from one to the other as to what could have kept her, each more impossible and ridiculous than the last, and Maya chuckled at each one, though she provided none of her own. She could write this off to her having never met the woman, but she knew better when faced with her own mind.</p><p> </p><p>It was just on the tail end of Dylan’s supposed cause to their teacher’s tardiness rising out of a daring secret double life as an international spy that one last student joined the room, a girl who stopped just inside the room, first noticing the teacher’s absence, followed by the rearranged seats, and finally Maya herself.</p><p> </p><p>“New kid?” she asked, dropping into the seat next to Lucas’, in front of Asher’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya,” she lifted her hand in a wave.</p><p> </p><p>“Nadine,” the girl introduced herself with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>When she was caught up on what the others had already learned on Maya’s history, and the fact she had been invited to hang out over the weekend, she looked at once optimistic, something correctly assumed to have come from her now having the prospect of another girl to interact with within their group of friends.</p><p> </p><p>“How do you like it here so far?” Nadine started to ask, just as a tall woman swept into the room, giving breathless apologies for her tardiness. Within seconds, the students turned to sit facing forward again. As they did so, the woman found Maya’s face in the middle of the room.</p><p> </p><p>“You must be our new transfer,” she smiled, motioning for her to stand. Maya would have rather remained as she was, but knowing she had no other choice, she slowly got up, now made to join Miss Alcott at the front of the class. She felt so small. “Why don’t you tell us about yourself a bit?”</p><p> </p><p>Her voice was refusing to come, as it seemed determined to do since they’d gotten here, and even now, when she so desperately needed to make an impression, her personality was unattainable, left back in her old home or…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya Hart,” a boy spoke, and she turned to him. Lucas. He gave her a nod, and at that, another took up the charge.</p><p> </p><p>“New York City,” Zay informed Miss Alcott. “Born and raised.”</p><p> </p><p>“Her mother got a new job, so they moved,” Asher nodded on.</p><p> </p><p>“Drove all the way,” Dylan piped in, like that was something he would have wanted to do, too.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s going to hang out with us this weekend,” Nadine rounded out the group’s briefing to the class, and Maya would have been speechless, had she hadn’t already been voiceless. She didn’t need to say a thing; they had her covered. That was the moment they all became her friends, and she would always remember.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Miss Alcott smiled. “Looks like you’ve been getting to know some of the class already. Is there anything else you’d like to add?” Maya shook her head. “Then let’s get started,” the teacher indicated for her to sit back in her spot. “Don’t worry about the book. Come see me after class, we’ll work something out.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya returned to her seat, feeling a weight or two lifted from her shoulders, the assignment having been the heaviest of all. Miss Alcott seemed fairly reasonable, which made her fears of falling behind right from the start a thing of the past. And then her introduction… She’d been surrounded in the protection of Lucas and his friends, making her stand out just a little less. Short of being back home, she couldn’t have asked for more. When Lucas turned his head and looked at her, she gave a small nod of gratitude.</p><p> </p><p>Maya spent the rest of the class listening as Miss Alcott spoke, even though she’d been told not to worry over this book they were discussing. She was going to make a good impression. The class ended, and as the others left, Miss Alcott reached into her bag and pulled out a book. She handed it to Maya, telling her to start reading it whenever she could. She would be given a deadline and questions to answer by the end of the week.</p><p> </p><p>The others stood waiting for her outside of class, as though she had five guides instead of one, ready to escort her to her next class. She fell in with them, with Lucas to one side, Nadine and Zay to the other, Asher and Dylan trailing at the back. If they were in all her classes, maybe this day would be a breeze. Her teachers would not all be like Miss Alcott, she suspected, but she’d had a good start, and she was going to hold on to that thought for as long as it took, until maybe she didn’t feel lost anymore.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Her Introduction to Possibilities</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Morning tumbled on and on, never paying mind to how she might have felt turned around and in need of a moment to stop and just get her bearings. By the time they were left off to have lunch, she was relieved, especially as Lucas, her valiant guide, and his friends along with him, invited her to join them at lunch. It wasn’t even a question, it was a done deal.</p><p> </p><p>The lunch line was as regular as one could expect, the ladies behind the counter picking her out as being new as soon as they saw her. It earned her an extra dessert and she took it gladly before scurrying not to lose the group in the crowd.</p><p> </p><p>As they all sat around their table, the others got to asking after her a little more. Did she have any brothers and sisters? No, she was an only child. Did she play any sports? She wasn’t in any team, but she wasn’t opposed to anything either. (“How about basketball?”) What did her parents do? Her mother was an actress, or tried to be, but mostly she’d been a waitress, until now, when an old friend had recruited her to work with their theater company, which was what had brought them to Austin. And her father?</p><p> </p><p>She felt a familiar old sort of pang at the press to explain her father. She didn’t want to lie, and maybe in time she would feel able to tell them about him, but here and now, when they had all known each other for all of a few hours… it felt like too much, too fast.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll come to the Fall Festival, right?” Dylan spoke, and it took a moment for her to realize he had given her an out, on purpose. He was looking at her, she thought, in an almost knowing way. Up to now he had come off as a bit spacy and distracted for the most part, and this was a new side to him she felt instantly thankful for.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you do at that?” she asked, leading to the five of them sitting around her taking turns at filling her in on the festival. She didn’t know if it was more to do with the activity itself or the promise of present company, but she agreed to join them there.</p><p> </p><p>She had waited until lunch was over, with people dispersing, before finding her way to Dylan’s side. She asked him about what he’d done, and there the sympathetic look returned. He asked if her father was gone or dead. She told him he was gone, and he nodded. His own mother had gone away a few years back, leaving his father alone to raise his brother and him. His father had since remarried, and Dylan was close to his stepmother, though his mother’s departure had left its mark, and he had recognized it in her before, so he’d bailed her out.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had thanked him again, leaving the conversation there. She might have confided, in him more than the others, but she still wasn’t ready. At least she knew she had that option.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was waiting to get her to her next class, and they moved on down the hall. He was quiet now, and she wondered if he was thinking about something, or if he was trying to say something, a secret… He looked conflicted.</p><p> </p><p>“You alright?” she asked him. He turned back to her, blinked, remembering she was there by the looks of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, sure,” he told her. She didn’t believe him, but she wasn’t going to call him on it. “So…” he started, looking like he was digging for a topic, “You must miss your friends back in New York, right?” The question was very direct, and even he looked to be surprised by it. She had been just a bit thrown by it, the way her memories would sneak up on her.</p><p> </p><p>“More than I thought I would,” she admitted after a beat. She could tell him everything about the two of them, from the moment they’d met to the moment they’d said goodbye, but it wouldn’t have painted the picture enough for him to see how much they meant to her and how much she had missed them.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… you’ve got us now,” he promised. “I know it won’t make up for anything, but I want you to know that,” he went on, and she knew he meant it, just as she knew he took his being her guide very seriously. One day she’d need to ask him why.</p><p> </p><p>The afternoon would feel like more of the same, as the morning had been. By the time last period rolled around, she was ready to go back home. Her head felt very big, with new faces, and names, information, classes… She would need time to stop, and breathe, and process it all. She knew… she hoped… that it would settle itself in time, and she would come back to this school one morning not feeling like an intruder, feeling like she belonged to this place. She wasn’t feeling it, not yet, but the day had given her enough to think, maybe, there were possibilities.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Her Introduction to a First Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her mother had been ready to come and pick her up after school if Maya needed her to, being in a new city, even if it meant leaving early from her new job, but Maya had told her she’d do just fine on her own. How long had she run around New York on her own? Austin would be as simple as anything compared to that. The way she saw it, this would be her first chance to kick start… Texas Maya… whoever she was.</p><p> </p><p>She left Lucas and the others as they left school, waving them goodbye until the next day. She watched them go for a moment, the five of them striding off in a mass, talking as they went. She turned back and started for the bus stop, still thinking about them, how fortunate it had been that she should get placed in their path. A part of her didn’t want to assume too much too fast, but that part ran right alongside the one who just needed something to hold on to, and it had all the pull.</p><p> </p><p>Now that she was on her own again though, she was left feeling a spell had lifted and she was herself again, with her thoughts, her concerns… As much as the thought of her friends had been running through her mind, a quiet and repeated soundtrack, now they were all she heard and could think about. She hadn’t realized how hard she’d tried to conjure up their voices back there. Riley with her bursts of joy and optimism, and Farkle with his drive, his frenzy… What she wouldn’t have given for him to call Farkle Time. The way they’d been, Lucas and Zay, Nadine, Asher and Dylan, that could have been her today, back home, with Riley and Farkle.</p><p> </p><p>She rode the bus in silence, looking out the window for the landmarks she’d seen go by in reverse that morning. She got off at her stop, moving slowly up toward her street. Reaching the house, she had the strongest urge to go around and crawl through the bay window, even though her mother had made her lock it before they left for school that morning.</p><p> </p><p>Instead she came through the front door, grabbed a snack, and went off to her room, where she sat by the window. She pulled the book Miss Alcott had given her from her bag and started to read it while she ate. She found it easier to concentrate somehow, easier than before, now that she needed something to hold on to so much. She disappeared into the pages, into the story of a boy called Jonas, living in a colorless world.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She jumped, looking up to find her mother standing in front of her. “I was calling your name, I started to think you hadn’t come home,” her mother told her, reaching out to touch her face with a smile. Maya looked down at the book in her hands, nearly sixty pages done. “Is that for school?”</p><p> </p><p>“My English teacher said to read it instead of the one they’d already started,” she explained, putting it aside once she’d made sure to save the page. Now that she thought about it, she was almost sure they’d been about to read it back in her English class in New York. Maybe Riley and Farkle would be reading it, too. It made her glad.</p><p> </p><p>“So? How was it today?” her mother asked, coming to squeeze in next to her. “The teachers were okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Maya replied, though in her mind she recalled how she’d nearly fallen asleep at the droning sound of her math teacher’s voice. “Miss Alcott was nice, she… she kind of reminded me of Mr. Matthews in a way,” she admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s good,” her mother smiled. “And the kids, how were they? That boy they brought in to help show you around?” she went on, and Maya frowned at the smirk she gave, but she didn’t call her on it, not when she had to admit ‘that boy’ had led to the best parts of her day.</p><p> </p><p>“The others were okay, I guess. Lucas introduced me to his friends, and we all sat together in class, and the cafeteria… I’m going to the Fall Festival with them, and we’re hanging out on Saturday. They’re going to show me around a few places I think.”</p><p> </p><p>“That is great to hear, Maya, I’m so glad,” her mother spoke like she was breathing a sigh of relief at the fact she’d made it through her first day with so much to show for it.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it was good,” she replied, putting aside the parts where she felt isolated, where she didn’t know who she was or where she belonged, where she missed home and her friends so much it hurt, where she was reminded of her father and how he’d left. “How was your day?” she asked instead, letting her mother talk instead of listen.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother spoke with great enthusiasm of her first day at the theater, and Maya wondered how much of it was truth and whether her mother might do just as she did, covering up the bad spots so she would only focus on the good. But the more her mother went on, the more it became clear to Maya there was not one bit of a lie or omission. Her mother had a fantastic day, and being here made her happy.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m happy for you, Mom,” she told her, and her mother smiled, putting her arm around Maya’s shoulders and pulling her close before pressing a kiss to the top of her head and looking down at her face.</p><p> </p><p>“And I’m happy for you that you’ve found friends, and a good teacher. Tell you what, let’s go out for dinner tonight, what do you think, pizza?”</p><p> </p><p>When they’d returned from dinner, Maya had gone back to her room and her book. She had always struggled with assigned reading, right up to now, and she wanted to take this turn in stride, to read as much as she could, maybe even finish it all before she went and saw Miss Alcott again. This new, unexpected feeling was not one she wanted to lose. The same went to the feeling she got when she was around those five or, she would say instead, when they were around her.</p><p> </p><p>She would wonder what they thought of her, when she wasn’t around. Did they find her strange? She did stick out when she was with them, didn’t she? Did they even know who she was, when she hadn’t really been able to show them? What would happen when they got to meet the real her? It was going to happen sooner or later, wasn’t it? She wouldn’t be this way forever. What if she lost them?</p><p> </p><p>She took refuge back in her novel. By the time she had been forced to put it aside, she only had forty pages to go, stunning herself at the realization. Sure, the book was under two hundred pages, but for her it had seemed a lot. She had finally gone to bed, dreaming in little to no time. In her head she found she had cast her new friends as characters in her book, and among them, too, she found old friends. They existed, all of them together, in a world of her creation, or near to it enough.</p><p> </p><p>She would look on to this second day coming in a matter of hours as a brand new experience. She wasn’t starting anymore. They had seen her, and they had started to make a space for her, whether she knew what to make of it or not. She would make it through another day, and another, and still another. For what little she had of herself, she still had something in her that told her to move forward, and she would keep on listening to it.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. His Guide to Friday Mornings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He almost had difficulty believing it was Friday again already. The week felt as though it had disappeared on him in a flash, and yet if he looked back on it, he found that it had been busy, and new, and in many ways the best week he’d had in a long time. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.</p><p> </p><p>When he walked into Mrs. Whitley’s office that morning, the guidance counselor had a look on her face he initially mistook for his having gotten himself into more trouble that he wasn’t aware of. When he sat down across from her, instead of having her launch into what now felt like a script she rattled off week after week, the woman instead asked him a question. She wanted him to tell her about his week.</p><p> </p><p>He blinked, momentarily taken by the change, before taking a moment to think on a response. It had gone well, he’d said, but noticing she seemed to want more, he went on to give her better details. He told her how on Monday he had been made guide to the new transfer student, Maya. He had shown her around the school, introduced her to his friends. She’d stuck with them all through the day, and that had been it.</p><p> </p><p>On Tuesday, it had been much of the same. When Maya had arrived, he and his friends had taken to her once again. She was kind of shy, but it felt like maybe it was because of the move more than anything, and he’d seen that throughout the week, because when he’d last seen her the day before she had felt much more at ease. She wasn’t completely settled in, he thought, but if given time then who knew? On Tuesday, they’d all had gym class, and it had brought out a flare in her like competitiveness; it had been funny, seeing how his friends had reacted. He’d been surprised, too.</p><p> </p><p>And on Wednesday, she’d been the one to come to them for the first time, where they had previously had to be the ones to go to her or she wouldn’t have wanted to impose. She was just one of them now, it had been two days only but it was clear to all six of them. He could still see she missed New York and her life there, her friends. She’d told them about those two now, and what little he knew of them, he could see why they would be missed.</p><p> </p><p>Yesterday she’d been going around looking both sort of shocked and proud, and she’d told them how Miss Alcott had so far been pleased with her work on the book she’d been assigned to read. It was like this one small success had changed everything for her, or started to at least, and she wanted to see where it took her… He wanted that for her, too. They all did, as they would for any of their friends.</p><p> </p><p>When he stopped talking and looked back at Mrs. Whitley, the old guidance counselor had been staring back at him and again she had an expression on her face he didn’t know how to read.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr. Friar, I asked how your week has gone. Instead you’ve spent the last eight minutes telling me how our new student’s week has gone,” she pointed out. He hesitated, looking back at her. What was he supposed to say? “That’ll be all for today, Mr. Friar, you can go,” she indicated the door. They still had almost twenty minutes to go, usually, and he didn’t know how to respond to this, so he got up and left the office still confused but relieved it was over.</p><p> </p><p>As he now had time to lose, he ended up seated just outside the school, thinking about that morning’s appointment. What did it mean that she had let him go so quick? Was it a good thing? What if it was bad? What if it meant she’d heard something that would mean he would get suspended again, or expelled, or… What if they got someone else to be Maya’s guide instead? She’d been here almost a week now, but still she could need help, if not here then around the city.</p><p> </p><p><em>You’ve spent the last eight minutes telling me how our new student’s week has gone.</em> What else could he have told her though, really? This was exactly what his week had been, watching as Maya became more familiar, more at ease in this place, with all of them. It was almost all he’d been thinking about outside of his own school work, or his family and his other friends. All of that had been going as normally as any. The only place where his life differed, where it stood out as notable was, in these past four days at least, where Maya’s day intersected with his.</p><p> </p><p>He hoped these Friday sessions would end soon. They felt like the last big hurdle. His father hadn’t driven him all week and he didn’t seem to think he needed to start again, so other than Mrs. Whitley, everything else was good. Everything else was great. He had a new friend, and tomorrow they and the others would be hanging out together. It would mark this one great week, cap it, on the promise of many more to come after it.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. His Guide to a First Week</h2></a>
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    <p>“What are you doing here so early?” He looked up and there was Maya. The way she looked at him, he wondered if she was here this early every day herself. He asked her if she was and she shrugged and sat next to him. “I always got up early, I guess even different time zones don’t change that. Once I’m up, it’s always easier to just get going. I used to go and get Riley from her house, but now she’s not here so I just come here and wait for the day to start.” He could really understand that if he thought about it. “You still haven’t said why you’re here.”</p><p> </p><p>“I had an appointment,” he said plainly. “Guidance counselor. Every Friday morning before school starts.” She looked at him, and of all the things he could have found on her face, here there was patience, like she’d been waiting on this, without prompt. And maybe it was that they were alone for the moment, but he decided he could confide this and hope that she would still be his friend when he’d finished. “Last year, around Christmas, I got suspended, for the rest of the year. I’m starting over the seventh grade this year.”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t speak, not right away. She was taking in what he’d just said, thinking about it and what it meant. Whatever he knew of her and didn’t know, she had to be in the same position with him, until now as he’d given her this.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she said. “That had to suck. Is that why people look at you like…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he nodded, and he breathed out. She was staying. “That’s sort of why I wanted to be your guide instead of Zay, to show them I could be trusted, I…” He thought for a moment she might have flinched, and he was afraid he would have given her the impression he had been dishonest in his friendship with her. “I’m glad I did though, and not because of school or anyone else. I’m happy you’re here with us, Maya. I’m happy you’re one of my friends now, and I hope you know I am one of yours, or that you see me as one…”</p><p> </p><p>“You are,” she said, and the concern had gone. “So… is it working? Are they happy with you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I think so. Mrs. Whitley, that’s the guidance counselor, she let me go early. I think that’s a good sign, right?” he asked her, and she shrugged. “Good,” he told himself, and he turned back, thinking he’d seen her smirk, though it was gone when she looked back at him, now a smile.</p><p> </p><p>As they sat together, waiting for the others and for the start of the day, he asked her about how her first week had been going so far. She said that it was going okay, as far as she thought. It wasn’t like she had left behind the feeling of being in a new place she didn’t know, but the more she got to see, the more of a routine she developed, it got better.</p><p> </p><p>And she recounted many of the same things he had been telling Mrs. Whitley earlier. She spoke of him, of Zay and Nadine and Asher and Dylan, and in her words, he and his friends felt like giants. He could see how important they had become to her, as much as he could see how the possibility that he might have lied earlier would have been that much more frightening for it.</p><p> </p><p>They had all arrived, and the six of them had gone off to class, but Lucas had his mind on the next day already. All week they had been looking at Saturday as all of them just meeting for pizza or something like that, but now… now he was thinking it had to be about more than that. It had to be about Maya, about making her find something here, something that would help her become more at home. He had shown her around school. Now he had to be her guide to everything else.</p><p> </p><p>It would take more than one day, one afternoon to do it all, but they could start. That night, he sent messages to the others, telling them what he had in mind. It started a rush of messages back and forth that didn’t seem likely to stop as minutes rolled on.</p><p> </p><p>The important part would be for them to know where they had to go first, and that was her house, to collect her. He asked her for her address, and she gave it, asking why he needed it. All he said was to be ready to go bright and early the next morning. That wasn’t going to be a problem for her, as they had established that morning.</p><p> </p><p>Come Monday morning, if it all went well, she would see Austin under a new light. And much as he would continue to offer himself as her guide, above all else he would be her friend, and really didn’t one lead to the other anyway?</p><p> </p><p>He had sought out the position of her guide out of a personal need. She knew that now, but what he was starting to experience, whether he saw it that way yet or not, was how much it had shifted in him. He didn’t concern himself so much on how others saw him anymore.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. His Guide to Saturdays</h2></a>
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    <p>He had been forced to explain why he had to delay his normal Saturday activities to his father, but he had been surprisingly understanding on the matter and that had been the end of it. Maybe it really was all falling into place.</p><p> </p><p>He’d met the others on the way to Maya’s house. He hoped it didn’t look too much like they were off to kidnap a girl… They came up the street, the five of them, a sort of frenzy in them, everyone wanting to plead for which place they needed to take her to first.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was sitting outside the house as they approached, hunched over a large book she was either writing or drawing in. She went and put it back into the house as soon as she saw them coming.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, New Kid,” Nadine called to her. “Time to go!”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s kind of early for pizza, isn’t it?” Maya smirked, maybe not as opposed to it as she could claim.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we’re not going for pizza,” Zay declared as she came up to them. “You just come with us now,” he tapped her arm and Lucas shook his head, seeing how hard he played up the mystery.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at her house a moment before they all walked off. He knew from what she had told them during the week that they had lived in an apartment back in New York, floors up from the ground, and being in this house, she still hadn’t gotten completely used to looking down from her window and finding grass. To him, when he had seen her sitting out there on the front porch, he had thought she looked like she was right at home.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting at the bus stop, they had a laugh over Asher’s supposed twin swaps with his brother Joey. Maya had no idea that this was a thing, though the way she told it, maybe it explained a thing or two she’d overheard some girls talk about. Asher had wanted to know which girls had been talking about him. Nadine had asked if this was so that he could then talk to them in return and he had played innocent – poorly – and settled the question. Maya had not known the girls’ names anyway, but she offered to point them out if she saw them again, which both earned them a flush out of him, and a new sort of appreciation of her.</p><p> </p><p>On the bus, they packed into the back, the four boys side by side and the girls across from them. Most of the ride was spent with Zay inquiring as to whether Dylan’s brother would be there that night, so they could finally have their long awaited – according to him – rematch. Dylan said he would be, leading Zay to claim him for his team at once. Lucas pointed out that it wouldn’t be a rematch if the teams were different. Nadine had followed this by asking Maya to team up with her, to which the blonde had agreed at once. Zay had taken this as all the validation he’d needed to poach Kyle Orlando, after which Asher now reminded them that they would be four against three. Dylan volunteered as a referee, so long as he got to have a whistle.</p><p> </p><p>Of all people, Maya had been the one to make them check and realize they were about to miss their stop, and they all rushed to get out. They hadn’t gone so far, and Lucas pointed down one way, indicating their school was visible in the distance. He had come to the conclusion she might have had a pretty good sense of direction. In their group, more of them could be said to have been excellent in that department, and there was Dylan especially who was not to be left wandering in parts unknown and some known ones, too, by Asher’s claim and Dylan’s own as well. It only made today more important for Maya then, Lucas truly believed it.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at her as they walked, it seemed to him Maya was looking forward to this as much as they were. She had been opening to them day by day, but on many levels she felt so guarded. He wanted to ask her how she was doing, more than he had before. He had shared his own secret, and he thought she might have wanted to do the same, but this was hardly the place, with all of them there, and besides they were all set to have fun today, weren’t they?</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t been paying attention for a moment and now Asher and Nadine were arguing about where they were meant to go first. Maya was watching this exchange like she was trying not to laugh, and Lucas was right there with her, as Zay and Dylan also seemed to be, and it had been Zay who came to solve the issue by leading the three of them off and waiting to see how long it would take for the pair of them to realize they were being left behind. They made it nearly a block before hearing the sound of two runners coming toward them.</p><p> </p><p>“So, who won?” Maya asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I did,” Nadine declared. “Ha!”</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. His Guide to the Park</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas couldn’t say whether the others felt it just as he did, but he didn’t know that he had taken time to really appreciate his town in as long as he’d been in it. Now, as they took Maya around and showed her the places that mattered to them, it felt like he’d need to keep a list soon, or he might forget something.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t see the time pass. They had shown Maya anything from stores and restaurants to monuments, with what could only be categorized as ‘places where someone got hurt and everyone laughed.’ Here was the tree Zay and he had tried to climb only to fall from it. Lucas had gotten out of it with a few cuts and scrapes, while Zay had ended up with a cast on his arm. He’d been ten at the time, and he happily showed the scar he still had. Then there was the hill where Asher had chased after Dylan, on a third grade field trip, only to lose his footing and tumble right by him. Nadine had her own ‘war story,’ pointing to a bench with a notable hole in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>“Foot got stuck in between, last year. They had to cut around,” she’d revealed with a grin. No one could even count the number of places where Dylan had gotten hurt or almost hurt anymore, and they didn’t try, though every so often he would point to something and one or more of the others would nod in remembrance.</p><p> </p><p>If Maya was in any way baffled by this tally of injuries, it didn’t show. Lucas thought instead that she might have happily listened to each of Dylan’s stories.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, they had found their way to the park. Nadine had told Maya how this was the place where she’d met the four boys. It was the summer before she’d started at school with them. She’d been bored, watching her little sisters play in the sandbox with their grandmother when, as she told it, a basketball had nearly taken her head off. She had picked it up, and when she’d gone to return it, there they’d been. Zay had asked if she wanted to play with them, and that had been the start of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, that was the first time I beat you,” she recalled fondly, though Zay claimed he had let her off easy because he’d been the one to throw the ball that had almost knocked her down.</p><p> </p><p>They all went and showed Maya where they often went to sit. They would come here and play, or do homework, sometimes. On good days, the view was better than being stuck around a table, as Dylan told her. Lucas wondered what Maya thought as she looked at that view, the city spread before them. It almost looked like she was trying to memorize it all, to the last detail.</p><p> </p><p>With lunch time rolling in, they’d sat there, Asher and Dylan running off and returning ten minutes later with paper bags filled with food from Asher’s uncle’s diner. The food was passed and distributed about, and if they had wanted to show Maya why they loved this place, he was confident they had done as much.</p><p> </p><p>The conversation had taken an animated turn when Nadine had asked Maya if she watched Red Planet Diaries. The change had been like a switch being flipped, a spark had lit in her eyes and she’d started at it with Nadine, both of them rattling off their favorite parts. The boys would look on, some of them clueless, others attempting to get a word in but failing to find an in. Lucas wondered if this was taking her back to her best friend in New York. When she’d stopped, there’d been a bit of a wistful smile on her face.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the time, he knew they needed to get a move on if they were going to hit their big stops before the day was all gone. He mentioned this, and little by little they gathered up their things and walked back through the park to reach the bus stop. Maya thanked Asher for the meal they’d all had, and he told her she would always get a good deal at his uncle’s place. He’d told him she was one of his friends, and that was all he needed to know. The gratitude that shone from Maya’s eyes when he said this hit Lucas in an unexpected way, making him wonder what kind of life she’d had in New York.</p><p> </p><p>That was just one more item in this whole lot of unknown he was realizing still existed around their new friend. He wanted to know more, and at the same time he would wonder how much he did or didn’t need to know. It was her business what she did or didn’t share. He didn’t need all of that for him to know she had become part of their group, their lives. He also knew the value of certain secrets, as he knew there would always be a time and a place for their becoming shared, if Maya felt so inclined. She was his friend; he could wait.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are we going now?” Maya asked them all as they got on the bus and found seats.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll see,” Zay told her, once again casting himself as bearer of mystery. The other five of them stared at him in silence, biting back a clear urge to laugh. “What?” he looked from one to the next. “That was good… It was.” They said nothing.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0026"><h2>26. His Guide to the Theater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This seemed like as good a next space to share with Maya as they were ever going to find. They would be here at the movie theater the five of them so many times that it would only be natural for them to assume Maya would end up here with them before long. And it was a nice building in and of itself. Lucas’ mother, who saw herself as something of an expert on things of the sort, had shared her appreciation of this theater with her son, and so here they all were, standing six strong, looking at the front of the building.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this where we’re going?” Maya would ask, never tearing her eyes away. She sounded impressed, failing at covering it up, and it became a moment of pride in Lucas and the rest.</p><p> </p><p>“My cousin used to work here, I know them. They let us in once in a while for free,” Asher revealed, and no doubt thinking of the lunch they’d only just gotten, Maya gave him a look. “I have connections,” he shrugged, and Lucas bit back a laugh, not because it had been a lie, rather an understatement.</p><p> </p><p>Asher’s connection here at the theater had paid off on this day thanks to Maya in a way. As soon as it had been revealed she was new and they had been showing her around, they’d been waved through.</p><p> </p><p>The inside of the theater easily made the outside pale in comparison. Maya had stood there looking at the ceiling for so long, and Lucas had only been able to watch her look at it, wondering what might have been going through her head in that moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Tickets, tickets, tickets…” Nadine declared, distributing the lot from her hand soon after. Lucas looked down to see what they were seeing. He had seen it just two weeks before, both him and Zay with Dylan as the others had been unavailable. Nadine had been so upset that they hadn’t waited and they had vowed to return when it would be all of them. Now here they were.</p><p> </p><p>Lining up down the middle of one row, they sat, Asher on one end, followed by Dylan, Zay, Maya, Lucas, and Nadine at the other end. It had taken some urging of other people to move, but finally they were seated and waiting. When Zay had mentioned snacks, Asher had disappeared, squeezing his way out of the row. Minutes later, he returned with three bags of popcorn and six drinks, passing them down the line. Lucas was sure he’d seen Asher mouth the word ‘connections’ just before the lights started to dim.</p><p> </p><p>It felt to him as the movie went on, and he wondered if some of the others felt the same, as though it had been the six of them all along. He’d catch Maya’s laughter at his side and it would seem as common to him as Zay’s muttered commentary or Nadine’s questions. He had made it so important, to the others as much as to himself, that Maya got to feel at home, and now he was the one feeling it.</p><p> </p><p>When the movie had ended and they’d gotten out of the theater – Maya had been enthralled by the ceiling again – the sunlight found them once more and they breathed in the air, walking off down the street talking about the movie. It was now that Maya admitted she had seen it already, too. She had seen it in New York two days before she’d left, with her friends. They would have seen something else if she’d said, Nadine promised at this, but Maya insisted that she didn’t mind. It had felt different, now, seeing it here with them, maybe sort of like a book end to the experience.</p><p> </p><p>They set up then and there a plan to come and see a different movie the next weekend, one none of them had seen. Barring any unforeseen things keeping them from showing up, they were all happy to declare themselves in.</p><p> </p><p>As they went, Lucas found he had started rattling off some of the facts his mother had shared with him about the theater, and he was glad to see Maya seemed at least vaguely interested. Zay, on the other hand, was shooting him some confused looks. He didn’t know what those were about, and he mostly ignored them, carrying on with the facts.</p><p> </p><p>They had one more stop to go before they rounded on the Orlando house, and it was only normal they should end there with how much time they all spent there on a regular basis. They were near certain Maya would love it, too.</p><p> </p><p>She would look at the shop windows and other points on either side of them as they walked, and Lucas saw it as a new and curious openness to the city around them. Lucas and the others were only glad to fill her in, either on the merit of one place or another, or on yet more tales of bodily injury through the years, most of them coming from Dylan of course. Sometimes Maya would laugh and throw in a story of her own, and the consensus among the group was that they would like to meet these friends of hers someday. Asher was curious as to whether or not there really was a Farkle.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0027"><h2>27. His Guide to Chubbie's</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His oldest memories of coming to this place were of him and his grandfather getting something to eat after going to one place or another during the day. He would always let him get whatever he wanted, especially extra desserts. When his eyes would go wide, his grandfather would give him that booming laugh of his. Even now that he came here on his own, with his friends, he still felt his Pappy’s presence. They still came here together every so often, and it was something he always appreciated.</p><p> </p><p>He told as much to Maya as they came through the door, and instantly he could spot the slightest edge of a held-in chuckle. He responded with a shrug; he was in no way shamed. At this, she only smirked and they all walked through, finding their usual table thankfully empty.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m starting to feel a bit like I’m not dressed right,” Maya declared, looking around.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about it, you’re fine,” Lucas assured her. Maya turned back to him at this. “Well, you know what I mean,” he shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, yeah,” she shrugged back, in a manner that suggested she meant to imitate him. As they sat, he watched as she looked around again, properly took the place in. To him, to most of them around the table really, it was something so engrained into who they were, thanks to how long they had been coming here, so he couldn’t say what it would have looked like to her, being from New York especially.</p><p> </p><p>She fixated on the stage first and foremost, and he told her how there would often be live music playing, pointed out a girl standing off to the side, looking as though she was about to go on. Now Maya looked back every so often as though waiting for the singer to go on.</p><p> </p><p>She was getting more at ease being here, he could see, but it still felt most times like he’d stop and realize he didn’t know her very well, not yet. He considered her a friend, and to this there was no question, but it did make him wonder. How could he, how could all of them, feel so bonded to her when they didn’t know so much? What was it about Maya Hart that they recognized as belonging here with them?</p><p> </p><p>Though their lunch in the park wasn’t so far off from them yet, and the popcorn from the movies was even closer, they soon had ordered food that now sat around the table. Each of them would tell Maya to try this thing or that, and she didn’t argue, sampling each plate, checking the stage here and there. She looked like it was all so much at once, but she looked happy, too, so what did it matter?</p><p> </p><p>There were other kids from school here and there in Chubbie’s, and Lucas could see how some would look at their table, at him. It was easy to know which ones thought one way about him and which ones thought the other. If they didn’t think much on it then they didn’t have any reason to stare, did they? Now the ones that did, well… He didn’t have to wonder what they thought, did he?</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” He turned back when he heard his name. It had been Zay, and he pointed to show the singer was coming on stage. Lucas watched as his friend moved to stand, but just as quickly he sat back down, and Lucas knew without looking what had made him remain where he was.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” Maya asked, the only one here not caught up on the Vanessa saga. This didn’t last long once Asher clued her in. “Why doesn’t he go talk to her?” Maya asked, baffled.</p><p> </p><p>“Like he could,” Nadine shook her head as the enthralled Zay kept on trying to look at the girl without seeming too obvious about it. “He tried once. We don’t speak of it.” Asher and Dylan shook their heads as well. “One of these days he’s bound to do something about it. We’re kind of curious to find out what that something’s going to be.”</p><p> </p><p>The singer began her set, and when it was clear the Zay situation would not be solved today, they had turned in their seats to listen. Lucas would catch glimpses of Maya’s face as she listened, and the expression he felt he could read there was sort of like appreciation, if he had to put a word to it. Between songs, he asked if she was into music.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” she said, as though to ask who wouldn’t be, but then she went on to say she did kind of like to sing herself, sometimes. She also revealed some knowledge of guitar playing, which had now seemed to fit all too well to where she and her mother had ended up. Dylan told her she could sign up for open mic nights, but Maya only shrugged, saying she wasn’t one for performing that way, to stand out in the spotlight. Lucas had trouble believing that.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0028"><h2>28. His Guide to Here & Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Soon as the singer had hit a livelier sort of tone in her set, the others had started to disperse. Nadine had dragged Zay off to dance about, on the suggestion that it might get Vanessa’s attention. Then Asher had seen some people from school and gone to see them. This left Lucas alone here with Maya, it dawned on him, for the second time in as many days. Here he’d been, thinking he had need of getting to know her better, and now it was the two of them sat across from one another in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon at Chubbie’s.</p><p> </p><p>She was looking around with something like wonder. He didn’t know that he’d seen her smile anywhere near as much as he’d done today as he’d done in this whole week knowing her.</p><p> </p><p>“You like it here?” he asked her and she blinked, turning back to him. “You like it here?” he repeated.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t think I would,” she said, and he wasn’t sure whether she was referring to Chubbie’s itself or the city as a whole. “It’s so… different. It’s nothing like home… like New York,” she corrected herself after a beat, and seeing the smallest twinge of sadness flash across her face, all he could think to do was to find a way to make it disappear as soon as possible, to bring back the smiles she’d been displaying all day.</p><p> </p><p>“I think different’s good,” he told her. “Makes you appreciate some things more, doesn’t it? And you can find new things to like. Like here, like that ceiling at the theater…” There was that smile; she hadn’t known he’d seen her back there. “And then there’s people,” he nodded to Nadine and Zay. She had held her promise to their friend, by the looks of it, making as visible of a show of themselves, all but dragging poor Zay along. The mission to get Vanessa’s attention, for better or for worse, had most certainly been met.</p><p> </p><p>Maya laughed, looking at them, and Lucas had to do the same. Then he watched as she sat up, an idea clearly coming to her. She turned and signaled to him – be right back – before getting up and moving toward the comically ‘dancing’ duo. Suddenly, she had tagged Nadine, who grinned and gladly stepped aside, and Zay’s confusion was boosted anew. He now had a new partner, and this one wasted no time in finding her own approach, letting him display some actual skill. Whereas he had been confusedly following along before, he now looked focused, and Lucas soon figured out why that was. He was showing Maya some moves she must have asked him to teach her, maybe to ‘dance more Texas.’ He was doing just that.</p><p> </p><p>And then the impossible happened. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t been looking. Even the other three, scattered about the room, watched on as Vanessa made her way across the floor and stopped behind Zay. She tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned and saw her, he looked like he’d lost consciousness and regained it in the span of two seconds. Without a word, Maya Hart had marched back to their table, triumphant, while the Great Miracle at Chubbie’s went on to see Zay now showing his moves to Vanessa, who laughed in earnest and mimicked him.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you do that?” Lucas asked as Maya sat back down, next to him now. She shrugged, reaching back across the table to get her glass and take a drink.</p><p> </p><p>“I just thought, now that Nadine got her attention, it was time she saw Zay’s a good guy and he deserved a shot.” He could only smile, knowing how long he’d been thinking the same thing of his friend. And she had done that for him; she looked proud.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I say something? I can see moving here was probably the last thing you wanted, but I’m kind of glad that you’re here now, with us.” She looked at him, and he could see her thinking a moment before she replied.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m starting to be glad I’m here, too. And I never thought I would think that, not this soon. It’s all you guys, this week… Couldn’t have asked for a better guide,” she declared, and the way it made his chest puff up for a moment, she burst out laughing. “Alright, easy there, Huckleberry.”</p><p> </p><p>“What did you call me?” he blinked, and she laughed again, just as the others came to rejoin them. Asher, Dylan, and Nadine were all three of them around Zay, speaking over one another, asking him about how it had gone out there, what Vanessa had said to him, what he had said to her. He couldn’t speak, but he was smiling like it was fixed to his face.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they all left Chubbie’s, they were still talking about what had happened back inside, as much for Zay’s managing to both talk to and interact with Vanessa and for Maya’s getting him that far. They went on their way to the Orlando house for the last leg of this day of smiles and miracles. It almost didn’t seem possible that it would all have happened in a single day, but then of course it had. And they were unlikely to forget it.</p><p> </p><p>As they neared the house, Lucas vaguely worried about Mrs. Orlando and her looks of disapproval toward him. He wondered if he might need to explain to Maya about it, but then he decided almost as quickly not to bring it up, because really what good would it do for him to call attention to the situation? The best thing that he felt he could do was to go on being the person he knew he was and hope that sooner or later Mrs. Orlando – and anyone like her – would clue in to what was really there in front of her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>The long expected not-really-a-rematch would take place as the sun was going down on their Saturday, with Nadine, Maya, and Asher, facing off against Lucas, Zay, and Kyle Orlando. Dylan stood as referee and judge, and so the game began. Having never had Maya as part of the mix in any of these games before, they had no idea how this would all go, if she would be any good.</p><p> </p><p>The answer came to them quicker than they would have anticipated. She was good, maybe not as good as Nadine or Kyle, but enough that the boys on the opposing team had to react in consequence, while Maya’s teammates felt their own chances markedly increased. In the spirit of this whole day, it had been a memorable game. And when the girls and Asher had won – by all of a point – it had been as good of a result as they could ask for, although Lucas could bet Zay and Nadine were already thinking of the next game.</p><p> </p><p>With the older Orlando in tow, they had made the rounds, first seeing Asher home, then Nadine, and Zay. Lucas would have been next, but instead they went on to get Maya back to her house. The sky was dark, and the moon and the stars were out, and she would look up at it all as they went. How she didn’t trip and fall was beyond him.</p><p> </p><p>“You do that a lot, looking at things,” he finally commented. “Why?” he had to ask.</p><p> </p><p>“Why not?” she shrugged. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” She wasn’t wrong there. “It’s different… new,” she made a small adjustment, calling back on his previous explanation, and he nodded in agreement.</p><p> </p><p>When they arrived at Maya’s house, she quickly said her goodbyes. She didn’t want to have her mother come out and talk to them. So he told her he’d see her on Monday and that was that. Kyle walked back with him to the corner of his street and then he continued on his own until he got home.</p><p> </p><p>His father was sitting there out front when he arrived, and Lucas was invited to sit with him and tell him about his day. He hesitated, but he finally did as told, sharing the tale of his Saturday with friends.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Her Way to Home Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One Sunday morning, Maya woke up and realized they had been in Texas for almost a month already. She had woken up that day and she'd felt good. It wasn’t to say she had felt badly on all those previous mornings, and with her friends and everything they tied to it was no wonder, but really this one morning felt different. It felt like something was slowly awakening inside her, and its presence filled her with that standout sort of contentment. She didn’t want to let it get away.</p><p> </p><p>She was the first one up, and had she any hopes of attempting to cook breakfast without either making a mess, a tasteless disaster, or burning the whole house down… Instead, she found herself sneaking into her mother’s room. Katy Hart was not a graceful sleeper, a trait she had passed on to her daughter and then some. Maya climbed to sit cross legged at the foot of the bed, until a few minutes later when her mother opened her eyes, saw her, and startled.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, what…” she yawned. “What is it, what… Everything alright?” she sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Everything’s fine,” Maya promised, and maybe on some points this couldn’t be true, not yet, not ever, but they didn’t feel so near today as they did on most days, and so she was content in ignoring them in favor of one truth she could recognize through the clutter: she loved her mother. “Can we do something today?” she asked. The surprise that bloomed on her mother’s face could only make her remember how rarely she might have made a request like this. Her mother was soon sitting there in her bed with thoughts rolling through her head.</p><p> </p><p>“Something…” she repeated under her breath, and to Maya it now became clear maybe her mother had not had the benefit of a guide or five.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we go see a movie?” she suggested, and her mother sat up smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” she declared, like she was throwing caution to the wind. “A movie sounds great.”</p><p> </p><p>The night after she’d gone to that theater for the first time, her sketchbook had seen many a new addition, like snapshots she had held right there behind her eyes until such a time as she could return home and unload those memories on to the blank pages of her book. The ceiling of that movie theater had been the best thing she had yet portrayed. Her mother had seen it on paper, and now she would get to see the real thing.</p><p> </p><p>So many times before she had shown herself borderline embarrassed to be seen with her mother, to have her be her loud and lively self out in the world. The move had been hard on both of them, and in time Maya had seen that even for her mother it had meant a part of her feeling absent. The weeks had been good to her, and she only wanted to know that it would be the same for her. Her mother was that loud woman, that absent woman, that one who’d chased her father away, who’d taken her from all she knew… but she was also the one who’d been there, the one who wanted so much to do well for her, the one who had given her that sketch book just when she’d needed it, a small gift that felt large as the world. She was the constant of her life in everything.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that look there?” her mother asked, and Maya realized she’d been staring at her as they walked down the street. She just shrugged and smiled, and her mother pulled her to her side with a smile of her own as they reached the theater and went through the door. “Well would you look at that!” she immediately stopped and pointed to the ceiling. Maya pulled her arm down, but she also nodded. “I can see why you liked it so much.”</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t often go to the movies just the two of them back in New York. Actually, she was sure she had been eight when they had last gone. It made today feel that much more of a special occasion, but maybe in time it wouldn’t be that anymore. It could become normal…</p><p> </p><p>What if it didn’t? What if it couldn’t? She knew their track record, didn’t she? The Hart girls, hopeful? Optimistic? What good had it done them before? Realistic, now that was the quality they had relied on, or at least Maya could say as much of herself. Maybe her mother had gone by the other way, sometimes. And what did they have to show for it?</p><p> </p><p>Well, now they had a house, paid through the help of others, but still a house, their house. And her mother had a good job, a better job, and it made her happy. And Maya had friends, great friends, and school was good, it was… So what was she meant to do? Let the past lead her around? It had been prudent and could still be for her here.</p><p> </p><p>Something was awakening in her, a voice she had felt lost for so long. And what it told her, as it rose from its slumber, was all she could want or need to hear. Tomorrow would be a new day, and she would go through it. Whatever needed to happen would happen, and she would know it as it came. Tomorrow. Today, now, she was going to see a movie with her mother.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Her Way to Turn Around</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the whole first week of her going to school here at least, she had been cautious, attentive. These streets were new to her, and something in her had welcomed a terror that she should ever get lost and never find her way home again. It was ridiculous, really, but that was where her mind insisted on going, one morning after the other. That was then.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been going to school for three weeks, and today would mark the beginning of her fourth. She knew the way to school front and back, to school and any number of other places around the city. And today, after her outing to the movies with her mother the day before, she felt that little voice previously awakened now shouted, hollered, sang at the top of her lungs. The song was new and it rang of Texas, but it was her own voice.</p><p> </p><p>She was soon ready and so she started off toward school, getting on her bus and pulling out her history textbook. She didn’t need to look; she’d know when she got there. She would arrive before any of the others, just as she always did, and so she would sit on the school’s front steps, and she would read her textbooks, or her notes… More often than not the pencil tapping in her hand would see little images sprout in the margins of her pages. Many of them would show Riley, or Farkle, or even Mr. Matthews. They always had so much to say…</p><p> </p><p>When they would start to arrive, the order wasn’t always the same, except with Nadine, she was last, and just shy of late. Today, the first to come were Asher and Dylan. They dropped in on either side of her and she shut her notebook and put it back in to her bag as soon as they brought up the fact that their tardy little friend would be having her birthday the next week. That meant a party, and on that they could count on her parents putting together something that would embarrass Nadine, which meant it was up to them to salvage the day.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s easy… maybe,” Maya declared. “How hard would it be to convince her sisters to create a distraction?” she asked the boys, mischief and a plan forming itself in the back of her mind.</p><p> </p><p>Zay arrived soon after. Maya and the boys watched him stop and look back when Vanessa walked by. When she smiled and waved at him, he returned the motion and turned to his friends, the smile glued to his face and his hand still in mid air. Asher quickly went to him, pulled his arm down, and ushered him to come and join them. Maya nudged him with her knee and he gave a plaintive noise.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re kidnapping Nadine for her birthday, now try and keep up,” she told him. He nodded at once, then paused and looked back at the three of them, sat one step higher than him and staring at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, what?”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas came no more than two minutes later, and when he did, Zay relayed what he had just been told. Lucas turned to the other three, asking whose idea this had been. Maya stood, and from three steps higher she towered over him.</p><p> </p><p>“Seems as good a way as any for Nadine to have her birthday right. Now, don’t worry, I’ve done this before,” she assured him. He would look back at her, and if he still had any doubt on her capabilities, they were either silenced out of existence or into the back of his mind where they wouldn’t be seen.</p><p> </p><p>The moment Nadine was sighted running as fast as she could to reach school – with five minutes to spare – the conversation quickly turned to an incident last Friday when a student had dropped their tray in the cafeteria and the librarian had slipped and fallen; it seemed as good a place to go as any even if they hadn’t needed to hide their birthday scheme. They had needed to put the talk on hold about as soon as it had started, if they would be in class on time, and really it was something of a photo finish, the back of the heap almost jumping through the door before the bell rang.</p><p> </p><p>Their history teacher, Mr. Jiménez, was old, older than any teacher they’d had, and with the way he would drone on, maybe there was a reason for it. Maya missed Riley’s dad any time she sat in this class, and it was made all the more evident by how many times that head of curls appeared in her history margins.</p><p> </p><p>Today though, the teacher had news that brought his class out of its pre-emptive slumber. They were being assigned a project, and there would be teams of their own choosing, three to each team. In a heartbeat, Maya had looked to her friends and found the same question in their eyes: how were they going to split this?</p><p> </p><p>Asher and Dylan would be a given, and in an instant Maya had poached the other boys, for symmetry as she said, but really for the opportunity to discuss Nadine’s party some more without the birthday girl being around.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Her Way to School Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a different air, being in the library without their old librarian there. Miss Alcott was sitting behind the desk after school that day, one of a few teachers subbing in until Mrs. Calder returned. She waved at the six of them as they passed in front of her and they did the same before finding a table where they could all sit together. Maya sat on one side with Lucas and Zay, while Nadine, Asher, and Dylan sat on the opposite side. They would do their best to keep themselves minded to their own teams, though sooner or later they would end up whispering at the other side.</p><p> </p><p>The project as Mr. Jiménez had given it to them was to select one event they had covered thus far and to portray it under different perspectives. They had their own, in the facts they had been learning, but there was also the one of people who had actually lived through the time in which it had taken place. If such an event was close enough in time that they’d be able to ask a living person, then they could do so. Otherwise, it was to the books, the recordings, anything they could find that would help them put those events into perspective. Mr. Jiménez may have lulled them all to sleep in class, but his projects tended to go over very well among his students.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had no one here she could really talk to but her mother and none of their events would have come in her lifetime. Zay had started to offer his great grandmother who was very old but very energized, but then Lucas had also offered his grandfather, and the choice had been no choice at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Pappy Joe have a lot of stories?” Maya asked, and the boys turned to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you meet him already?” Zay asked, looking baffled, and Maya stopped herself laughing with half the noise out in the air. Miss Alcott had shushed them and they had returned to whispers.</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re not taking her, we’ll have GiGi,” Asher had told Zay, and this had made him instantly territorial, though after some coaxing from Nadine (“She loves me, you know it.”) he had relented, mourning the cookies she would make them as soon as they came to her door asking for stories, though he assured Lucas he was still glad to use his grandfather as their source. Maya wanted to meet both these people now.</p><p> </p><p>There was little more for them to do today, they decided, now that they knew their assignments would not require sources pulled from books, and so they left the library. Maya whispered an apology to Miss Alcott on the way out, and the teacher gave a warning look that had more of care than anything else.</p><p> </p><p>The school had lost all of its foreign quality to her by now. It was just school. Lucas was in effect retired as her guide, though it had not been in vain, for either of them. He had shown her around, and she had made sure it was known how well he’d done. She had seen the principal in the hallway the past Friday, after Mrs. Calder had been taken off to the nurse, and she had taken her chance at approaching him.</p><p> </p><p>Without much in the way of preamble, she had thanked him very much for giving her Lucas Friar as her guide. She told him how he had made a difficult adjustment less difficult and had made her feel very welcome. She told him that any future student would be lucky to have him stand as a representative of not only this school but this city as a whole.</p><p> </p><p>Her glowing words of review had been given in private and kept as such, but their effect was less so. This morning, and all of today really, there had been a noted change in the way certain teachers responded to Lucas as they saw him in the halls or as he walked into their classes. They didn’t go so far as to clap him on the shoulder, but for having seen how they’d been with him before, Maya, Zay, all of them noticed the change, and he looked filled with the most genuine relief, Maya swore he stood inches taller than before. Even now, as the six of them were leaving for home, he still carried that glad feeling in him, and for knowing what may have brought it to him, Maya felt some of her own gladness.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine, Asher, and Dylan all headed off to Zay’s GiGi’s home, where they had all been before. Zay watched them go, shouting to save him some of those cookies.</p><p> </p><p>“You coming?” Lucas asked her, and Maya’s smirk made him grow suspicious. “What?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, nothing. I’m just trying to prepare myself for Pappy Joe,” she gave him a look, and she thought it might have been the first time she made him nervous… She didn’t hate it. Zay only made it worse for him as he fed her tales of the Friar man, building him up like a legend from a song.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait until he tells you about Judy the Sheep…” he said, and she swore Lucas almost lost his footing.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Her Way to the Friars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had not expected to see him so nervous looking as they approached the house. Lucas had called his grandfather, who had told his grandson to go home, that he would get over there as soon as he was able, which should not be more than an hour away. In the meantime, the three of them figured they might go ahead and do the other half of the work, or prepare their questions for the one and only Pappy Joe Friar. But then they came through the door and were greeted by a tall blonde with a toothy smile and engaging voice and all else was forgotten.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, is this that new friend of yours you’ve been telling us about, Lucas?” she asked, coming to stand before them and for lack of a better term scooping up her guest’s hand. “Miss Maya?” She didn’t know how she was meant to react to this, but her face was angling for a smile the likes of which could be considered as delight, depending on which end of it you stood. Lucas, on his side, seemed to discover a new side of her.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s Maya,” he eventually confirmed. “Maya, meet my mother, Melinda Friar.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a pleasure,” his mother promised. “Now your grandfather’s called to tell me all about your little school project, he’ll be along in no time, so until then, why don’t we step into the kitchen for a snack.” And she was off, not waiting to see that they followed.</p><p> </p><p>“You know what, Lucas?” Zay started then, a puzzled look on his face, “I never really noticed until now, as I’m imagining what Maya here must be thinking, but your mother, she’s… Well, she’s something else. Maya? What do you think?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m thinking,” she spoke, as mystified and intrigued as she looked, “I’m thinking this may be one of the best things I’ve ever seen and I really want to get into that kitchen.” And so they went, all but shouldering Lucas along with them.</p><p> </p><p>Here, the ‘show’ carried on, as they sat and were treated to a snack that might have felt more like a small meal or a buffet offering. Maya had half a mind to pocket most of it for later. Lucas’ mother was something of a hectic tornado in heels, but then Maya knew something of that, from days of her mother preparing for one audition or another. The difference here was that this seemed to be Mrs. Friar’s natural state.  But she clearly loved her son very much and was good to his friends, so what was there to say?</p><p> </p><p>Pappy Joe was taking longer than expected, and so Maya was then treated to the arrival of Mr. Friar. The man was a much more collected person than his wife as he greeted his son’s new friend, and she was afraid he’d be one of those who would inquire on what her parents did for a living. But he only asked how she liked the city, and Maya noticed how much the man looked like an older, taller Lucas. There was a change to her friend's posture when his father was around, posing him as being on his best behavior.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, just as Mrs. Friar declared both Maya and Zay would be joining them for dinner, no questions asked, there was a loud knocking at the door, and through the door came a man Maya instantly knew could be no one else but Lucas’ grandfather, the aptly named Pappy Joe. She saw him and she kind of wanted him to be her grandfather, too.</p><p> </p><p>He apologized for his delay and in almost the same breath introduced himself to Maya and greeted her warmly. He wanted to hear all about this project of theirs and how he could help, though they didn’t really manage to start until after dinner. All through the meal, their living source already showed himself as someone who easily commanded attention. Between him, Mr. Friar, and Mrs. Friar, she found Lucas’ place among them as evident as it was surprising.</p><p> </p><p>They would finally go and sit outside the house, Maya, Lucas, Zay, and Pappy Joe, where the last took his seat and began telling them all about his personal experience of the event they had chosen. They took notes at times, but really it became that the best thing they could do to remember it was simply to sit as they were and to listen to what the man said.</p><p> </p><p>When all was said and done, Maya had accepted Pappy Joe’s offer to walk her home – which was less of an offer and more of an insistence. She had gotten to a point where she would have been sufficiently at ease to go about on her own and not get lost, but in the end she had relented and they had gone off together, Zay trailing along until he went on his way home.</p><p> </p><p>On her own with the man who, along with his parents, would have known Lucas his whole life, it had been so strong an urge in her to ask him questions, but finally she had decided against it, feeling maybe she would be better placed to learn these things from Lucas himself. So instead she had ended up picking at a conversation on New York, as the man told her of a past visit along with his late wife. She was all too happy to oblige. She never saw the resemblance to her friend as much as she did now.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0033"><h2>33. Her Way to Team Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya would meet with Lucas and Zay to work on their project, at the Friar house, on the next two afternoons. They had to present their research on the next day, and on the greater whole, she knew they had done the work, but then when it came to the presentation, their progress was not near as strong, no… The problem, before long, was a difference of vision.</p><p> </p><p>Each one of them wanted to present their research in their own way. Lucas wanted them to put on costumes, to pretend to be the key players as they told their stories. Zay wanted them to have a display of photos. Maya wanted them to have Pappy Joe, or maybe a recording of him, to tell his side of the story.</p><p> </p><p>They had valid points, all of them, and it wasn’t as though they didn’t like any of the ideas, but then they wouldn’t mix it all up and make it too busy, and abandoning their own idea was always out of the question, because it meant doing something they didn’t want, or not doing something that would put them at ease. Really, when it had gone on long enough, it was that it had drawn on so long that they’d forgotten what it was about and simply couldn’t let it go.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had started to feel before long that she was at a disadvantage, because Lucas and Zay had known each other for years. She had known them both just under a month. At times, she would see the way they talked to each other and it was just so clear. They wouldn’t even notice it sometimes, and what was she going to do, hold their history against them? Maybe it all just made her think about Riley too much, made her miss her more.</p><p> </p><p>In realizing this, she had only grown more short-tempered, and in the end she had finally lost it, and she’d told them she would do her own presentation and they could do theirs. Then she had gotten up and stomped off, out of the den and out of the house. She didn’t stop until she saw, much to her dismay, that she had gotten lost again.</p><p> </p><p>She stood there for who knew how long, clenching her fists tight for fear that she might finally lose it and start to cry. She breathed deep, over and over, and she looked around. She could find her way. She had been wandering about New York City since before she had any right to, and she hadn’t made it to this point in her life by letting unfamiliar surroundings get the best of her. She had always found the way, no matter how long it took, and by the end of it, not only had she gotten back home, she had also learned about new parts of the city she lived in. This would be no different.</p><p> </p><p>She started back the way she’d come, and as she went, minding everything she saw as she passed, Maya thought back to where she’d been just minutes ago, and how she’d ended up here.</p><p> </p><p>It was just how she was, wasn’t it? She’d been made to feel out of place, to remember that she didn’t feel at home, couldn’t, while they did, and it had tripped every one of her alarms, up to the last one, the one that told her to run, to remove herself from the situation. And so she had.</p><p> </p><p>She knew where she was now. She’d turned right when she should have gone left. And now that she was back on the path to the bus stop, she was faced with another realization. She’d run from them, she’d tossed them aside, and this was a new panic.</p><p> </p><p>Had she lost them? They might not be her friends anymore, they might tell the others and then they would not be her friends anymore either. One flare of temper and she would have wrecked the one thing that had made her okay with being in Austin instead of New York, one thing… gone.</p><p> </p><p>What was she going to do now, what was she supposed to do? She could try and apologize, but would it work? Even if it did – for now – they would remember today and it would remain, like a stain that couldn’t be washed away.</p><p> </p><p>Less than a month and she’d wrecked it. She guessed it was a miracle she’d made it this far, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t see until she’d nearly reached the stop. Someone was sitting on the bench, and she hadn’t really given them much thought, not until she was just steps behind him and she saw a bag at his feet; it was identical to her own. She reached to her shoulder and felt no strap. Now she looked at the boy on the bench, and she finally recognized him. It wasn’t a stranger.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas sat there, with her bag at his feet, and he looked sort of troubled, distracted enough that he didn’t hear her walk up or turn at all. Was he coming to return her bag to her, or…</p><p> </p><p>She slowly walked around the bench and came to sit next to him. Even now, it took a few seconds before he turned and saw her there.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0034"><h2>34. Her Way to Share</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neither of them spoke for near on five minutes. They sat there, not knowing where to look but clearly agreeing the one place they couldn’t look yet was toward one another. She didn’t know what he was thinking about, but her… She tried to think about what she was now meant to say and… she had nothing. She might manage a ‘sorry,’ but it wouldn’t be enough, not to her. So what could she say, what would she be willing to say?</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to come anyway,” he eventually started. “Then Zay said you’d left your bag so I went for it. I ran here as fast as I could, but you weren’t there. I thought you’d gotten on the bus and left.” In silence again, she sat there, asking herself what he’d still been doing there if he believed she was gone.</p><p> </p><p>“I got lost,” she quietly admitted. He looked at her, and she wondered if it showed on her face how afraid she had been a few minutes ago, how she was still kind of afraid now, afraid of the future. Maybe she assumed that it did, because what came from her next was a piece of truth, the kind no one in Texas had been let in on, especially her mother. “I’ve been lost… since we came here. It’s been better lately, I’ve been feeling better, more like myself, and I thought I’d be okay because of that, but I’m not sure anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still your guide,” Lucas spoke after she had gone quiet. “If you’re lost, maybe I can help…”</p><p> </p><p>“What if it’s too much?” she asked, her voice at once distant, as ready to run as she was. He wasn’t moving. He stayed there, with her, watching. “Ever since we left New York, I’ve been… I’ve been feeling like I didn’t know who I was anymore. Back home, I knew exactly who I was, or… who I needed to be. I belonged to that city. I never had a lot, but what did it matter when I had all of New York City just outside my door? It took my whole life so far to get there… and I had to start again, so it’s been feeling like I left her out there. Maya Hart is in New York, and here in Austin there’s… me, this,” she pressed her hand to her heart, her self. “Walking around without who I was, when I was home.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re here now,” he told her, and she knew he believed it. She smiled, weakly. “Maya, you’re my friend, you’re our friend, me, and Zay, and Nadine, and Asher and Dylan, but right now I’m here, so remember you’re my friend, and I’m yours. And as your friend, I want you to be able to tell me if you’re not okay.”</p><p> </p><p>She listened as he spoke, and beneath her hand she could feel her heart going in tremors, hearing the words he told her and knowing they were solid truth. Was she ready to tell him about every part of herself? Probably not, but she didn’t feel she had to be so guarded anymore, and that was a rare feeling.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t mean to burst out at you guys earlier,” she said, taking and letting out a breath. “I got a little…”</p><p> </p><p>“Home sick?” he offered, and she nodded. That was it, wasn’t it… “We were worried, that’s all,” he revealed. “We can go back, we’ll figure something out, the three of us. If anything’s wrong, you can tell me. Okay?” She reached for her bag at his feet, and when she stood he followed her. They started back toward his house, where their partner waited.</p><p> </p><p>“I want us to use all the ideas,” she told him. He looked at her, briefly unsure as to what she was talking about. When he remembered the project, he looked hesitant. “I know what we’ve been saying, but maybe it’s not too much. We can find a way, without going all… stampede,” she mimed what the earlier madness had felt like.</p><p> </p><p>“That would be better, yeah,” he agreed, then, “So you’re okay now?”</p><p> </p><p>“Definitely,” she told him, her guarded side not quite ready to go and say she still had all her doubts cycling through the back of her mind, that feeling good mostly meant being able to tune them out. “Can we just pretend none of this happened? Like we only took a break?”</p><p> </p><p>“We cleared our heads,” he offered, and she nodded in agreement. “I think it helped.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think so, too. We’re going to nail this presentation, Mr. Jiménez might even crack a smile.” Lucas seemed to think this was beyond their reach. “Oh, you just wait. He’s going to smile so hard his cheeks are going to hurt for months.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aim high, I like it.”</p><p> </p><p>They reached the Friar house to find Zay had been treated to the snack parade by Mrs. Friar in their absence. He looked up and, seeing them both there, he stopped with a fork in mid raise.</p><p> </p><p>“Utensils down, Babineaux, it’s time to get to work,” Maya told him. With a frown, he hurried a few more bites before trailing after them. They had to get this presentation figured out.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0035"><h2>35. Her Way to Confidence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning of their presentation came, and Maya woke up early… even for her. She just couldn’t sleep anymore, her mind was refusing to rest. She was nervous. How could she be nervous about a presentation? They had never been a problem before, had they? She would go up there, and she would say her bit and it would be over, however the cards may fall.</p><p> </p><p>But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Back home, whether her results matched her abilities or not, she always knew she was capable of more but she hadn’t really done anything about it. But then they had come here, and she had been so destabilized by the move that she’d gone into that new school wanting only to make a good impression. She had been trying more, trying harder. Now she had to present her work in front of people instead of simply handing it over, and the thought of it was actually giving her butterflies. It was the strangest sort of feeling to her. What would they think back in New York, Maya Hart nervous about a class presentation…</p><p> </p><p>She was ready to just head to school so early that it had caught even her mother’s attention. Maya had told her she wanted to be ready for her presentation, which was as close to the truth as she was likely to get. Her mother had offered to take her up there and see her off for the day, and Maya might have said it was unnecessary, but then she accepted. Her view of school wasn’t the only thing that was changing, was it?</p><p> </p><p>So off they’d gone, riding the bus together, and Maya asked her mother how things were going for her at the theater. Her mother started to say it was all going great, and then she paused, remembering to tell her that in a few weeks they would have Career Day at her school, and she would be coming in to speak to her class. Maya received the news, only able to conjure up what those days had previously looked like for her, and for a beat she was worried about what it would mean. As strong as her determination was that they had a new and different life here, maybe some things just didn’t know how to be different.</p><p> </p><p>They got off the bus, and Maya and her mother started to walk toward the school. As they did, her mother suggested that she should invite her friends over to the house sometime, that she hadn’t really gotten the chance to know them and she wanted to change that. Maya hadn’t even been aware she hadn’t really had them over, except when someone had taken her back home. Was she ready for that? Riley had known about her mother, their home, since they’d been little, and it was always just how things were. Lucas and Zay and the others, they’d only ever gotten glimpses. She told her mother that she’d keep it in mind.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, good morning, Miss Hart, and Miss Hart.” They looked up, just as they were coming up to the school to find the Principal standing there, as he’d been walking in, too. He instead came toward them, and Maya felt caught somewhere between New York apprehension and her Texas butterflies at her being with both her Principal and her mother. What would he say? “A bit early today, aren’t we?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Maya is getting ready for a presentation today,” her mother declared, tapping her daughter’s shoulder, and Maya pulled on a smile as best she could. “History, right?” She nodded quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well, of course. From what I’ve been hearing, you’ve been showing this level of dedication in all your classes,” the Principal told her, and it took Maya a moment to connect with the fact that he was smiling, that he might have been complimenting her. She tried not to look stunned, and she could only guess what her mother looked like. If the Principal noticed, he said nothing except. “Good to see you again, Miss Hart” to her mother before going on his way.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya…” her mother spoke after he’d gone and she sounded stunned, a little, but more than anything she sounded happy, maybe even proud?</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, don’t make a scene,” she begged, a second before she was caught in her mother’s arms and she was squeezed up close. “Mom… public… Mom, breathing!” her voice came muffled, and when she was let go, she breathed quickly. “You’re not crying, are you?” she looked at her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll spare you and save it for later,” her mother insisted. She smiled down at her, and Maya smiled back, smaller. “Break a leg,” her mother said in parting, and as she walked off, with a sort of bounce in her step, Maya didn’t know what to do with herself.</p><p> </p><p>She sat out front, as she always did, and she waited, lost in thought. The praise had been spontaneous, and she might not have heard it if she hadn’t shown up early, with her mother. But she had been early, and she had heard it, and now there was a sudden and noted absence of butterflies.</p><p> </p><p>Was it too early to take those words and hold them as proof that the morning’s presentation would go well? Maybe. Was she going to care? Not even a little. As far as she was concerned, it was all she had needed to hear.</p><p> </p><p>When Lucas and Zay arrived, she was as ready as they were to get through this and crush it. Lucas pointed out that she looked like she’d had loads of chocolate or coffee or something, and she told him she was just having a good morning. He was glad to hear it.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine had made her earliest arrival to date, with her two partners at her side. She revealed they had shown up on her doorstep to make sure she wasn’t late, and that she had still been sleeping at the time, which explained the annoyed look on her face. Finally Maya had understood the cause of her late arrivals was that Mr. Zhu worked very late, and when he came home, it would wake her up, and she’d have trouble getting back to sleep. Dylan had offered to have her sleep over, but then none of their parents had ever been at ease with this scenario.</p><p> </p><p>“But there are two of us girls now,” Maya pointed out, and maybe it was the Principal’s words making her bold, but before she knew it she was inviting them all for a sleepover at her house. “Nadine can sleep in my room, you boys go in the basement, we’ll lock the door if it makes your parents feel any better,” she went on. The idea was gladly welcomed.</p><p> </p><p>Before they knew it, they were headed into their history class, and the presentations began. When it was Maya’s team’s turn, they got up and went to stand in front.</p><p> </p><p>After the drama of the previous afternoon, which looked ridiculous in hindsight, their presentation had gone as smoothly as any one of them could have hoped that it would. They had managed to combine all of their ideas, and it had turned into – in Zay’s opinion – the best presentation of the class, although he did have difficulty not getting emotional when Nadine, Asher, and Dylan went on to talk about their conversation with his dear old GiGi.</p><p> </p><p>When the class was over, they had gone off, the six of them, talking excitedly about the potential of this sleepover, and Maya was just as anxious as the rest of them.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0036"><h2>36. Her Mother With a Night In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After what seemed like weeks and weeks of missed opportunities, it was finally happening. Her friends would be arriving soon for their sleepover. Maya had been preparing since she’d come home from school. She might have looked like a tornado. This night couldn’t have felt more important.</p><p> </p><p>The house was never in disorder, not once. Ever since they’d moved in, if felt as though both she and her mother had remained determined to maintain the appearance of their little home, even if they’d had no visitors except for Hildy, her mother’s new friend and co-worker, and Hildy’s daughter, Sara. Sara was six years old and so well-behaved that it often freaked Maya out.</p><p> </p><p>This wouldn’t be Hildy and Sara though. As close as she’d been getting to Lucas, Zay, Nadine, Asher, and Dylan, they had never gone further than her front step, never come into her home. They’d be coming into this part of her world they had never seen, and for better or for worse it would change how they saw her. She had been to each of their homes already, she knew she had learned new things about each of them. Good things, sure, and she could think the same would be true of her, but when had she ever benefitted in trusting anything like that? She needed to get the house ready.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother was still at the theater, might still be a while, which meant her guests should get here, get their look around, all before she came back, though that would only ever take her so far. Eventually her mother would come home and then… well, she wasn’t sure how it would go. Her mother could be a wild card that way.</p><p> </p><p>Putting her mother issues aside for the moment, she moved into her room. She had added a few items since they’d arrived, thanks to her mother deciding they needed to dedicate some minimal funds to decorating, to ‘find the Texas Harts.’ Maya had kept her from going too far off the rails and turn their house into some cattle ranch. It all still looked like them, but it also looked like a piece of clothing you bought but still needed to grow into. Her room still and always would fit her like a glove. And yet…</p><p> </p><p>She looked around at all the drawings she’d now stuck to her walls. Out of the many in black and white and shades of gray, there were also a few that burst with color. These were recent additions, the colored pencils a gift from her mother after seeing how well she’d been doing in school. It was still so new to her, that they could buy something out of the blue, and her reflex would still be to feel that it wasn’t right, that they should save up. Her mother wasn’t making a fortune at the theater, but it was still more than what she made before, and living here in this house that they owned instead of the apartment they rented…</p><p> </p><p>She felt for a moment like maybe she should take her drawings down from her walls before her friends arrived. What if they saw them and thought they were bad, or she was weird for hanging them, or… No. She was not going to let herself think that way. Although she had been thinking of reorganizing the sequence, so she would need to start by taking them all down, and so she did. But her friends would arrive soon, and she wouldn’t have time to reorganize them right away. She’d just have to put them away until she got the time she needed. Her walls looked naked.</p><p> </p><p>There was nothing left for her to do until her guests arrived, and she didn’t exactly know what to do with herself, except she really wanted to pull out her sketchbook. She didn’t pull pages from it anymore, didn’t want to empty it out. Besides, some images were too personal to be put on a wall.</p><p> </p><p>And now she was back to thinking about her mother, to what would happen when the two halves of her Texas life came together. Why did she have to be so afraid, like she would somehow chase them away? Was this the Dad thing again? They were just kids, it wasn’t going to be the same. Except these were her friends, her very important friends, important people she would not want to lose and she would do anything to secure those odds… even lie to herself to give herself plausible reason to take down her art. So of course her mother would be enough to get her worried all the same.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, she had ended up in her bay window. She would sit here, and she would close her eyes, she would summon the spirits of her friends, the oldest and dearest. With the ghostly presence of Riley and Farkle, she settled herself down, letting her worries fade away. She wondered what the actual Riley and Farkle would think of their imagined counterparts. All she could say was that, in absence of the real deal, they had been invaluable.</p><p> </p><p>The doorbell rang and she blinked, her old friends blinking out of sight as she stood to go and see who had just arrived. This was it, their first sleepover was about to start.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0037"><h2>37. Her Mother With the Incoming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stood on her doorstep was Zay, with a bag over his shoulder and a tin box in his hands. He handed it to her and revealed they were his GiGi’s famous cookies, which she had insisted for him to bring, for it being his first time not only visiting her house but also sleeping in it. Maya had met the tiny woman twice now, and she could see why Zay had so much affection for her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d hide those if I were you.  They’ll be gone in a second if Dylan even smells them,” he instructed, and so Maya hid the box in a cupboard. She offered to show him around, for lack of anything better to do, but he insisted on waiting for the others to be there to get the tour, especially if she was going to show them her room. He didn’t think it would have been appropriate, with no parents about.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s just me and my mom, and she…” The bell rang again, and this time she found Nadine on the other side, waving off her mother’s car.</p><p> </p><p>“I wanted to be first for once,” she frowned when she saw Zay standing behind Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“And hello to you, too, Little Z,” he gave a mock disapproving look as she walked in and dropped her bag next to his and looked around the living room with a brief sweep. She quickly locked in on the few pictures on the wall. The frames had been one of Maya’s suggested purchases in her mother’s shopping spree.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that them? Your friends?” she pointed to a picture of her with Riley and Farkle. It had been taken on her last day at school. Maya nodded, and Nadine looked back at the picture. “Cute,” she declared, as the bell rang. As always, Asher and Dylan arrived at once, and Maya learned the two of them had been having a debate for weeks about her house.</p><p> </p><p>“Dylan is convinced we used to go to school with another kid who lived here,” Asher explained, showing he himself had been of an opposing mind. Whether either of them could be shown as right would remain to be seen, as not two minutes after their bags had joined the other two’s, the bell rang again to announce their final guest.</p><p> </p><p>Maya let Lucas into the house, and with all present and accounted for, she now had to show them around. She soon found a personal little pride had grown in her. She liked her small house that didn’t feel so small to her, might have gone so far as to say she loved it. She was happy to show them the living room (the pictures were once again a big hit, though she may have wished her mother didn’t put so many of her when she was very little. Lucas had said they were all very much like her though, so it wasn’t all bad) and the kitchen (Dylan looked like he really could sense the hidden GiGi cookies) and even the bathroom (she didn’t explain how thrilling it could be that everything worked as it was meant).</p><p> </p><p>She showed them into the basement, and the boys brought their bags to the space where they would be sleeping. It was as clean as above. They didn’t have much in the way of surplus belongings to stock here. As they climbed back upstairs, Maya knew her room would be last, and she tried to summon her casual self, finding her absent. All she had was her nervous, apprehensive self… and the spirits of her faraway friends. So she took them into her room.</p><p> </p><p>She was so distracted by her bare walls that she was barely aware of the other five walking through, looking around… She heard Dylan insist loudly that this really was the house he thought it was, pointing to a small dent at the base and claiming he’d made it himself and had the scar to prove it. Asher contested this, claiming the scar in question had been acquired at Zay’s 9<sup>th</sup> birthday party. He knew all those scars and their origins, a fact Nadine called weird.</p><p> </p><p>“You could put a poster up there or something,” Lucas had told her, ignoring their friends’ squabble. Maya turned to him, looked at the wall again and shrugged. “I’ve got these old shelves back home, they’re still good. You could put them up there if you want, or I could help, I mean…”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” she nodded without thinking, but she wasn’t about to back out. Besides, shelves could be a good thing to have. “Thanks.” He smiled and tipped his head, just as she heard the door open, back out front. Her mother was home. She absently took a breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” her mother’s voice called. She looked back to her friends, who were all staring back at her, with a sampling of curious faces.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we’re here,” she called back, momentarily considering shutting the door, or sneaking everyone out of the window. It was the ground floor, why not? No, of course she wouldn’t. She ushered her friends out to go and meet her mother.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0038"><h2>38. Her Mother With Introductions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya led the procession as she and her friends came into the living room to meet Katy Hart. It was still strange to see her return from work in regular clothes rather than her waitress uniform, energized rather than completely exhausted, strange but also wonderful. Even so, she had no idea how this would go, and she really wished she did.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, you kind of met them before, this is Lucas, and Nadine, and Asher, and Dylan, and Zay. Guys… my mother, Katy Hart,” she made the introductions, trying not to sound as awkward as she felt. Going off the look both Nadine and Lucas tossed her way, she would have called that a failure. “I just finished showing them around the house.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nice, right? You know, we’ve lived here for… two months now, and some mornings I still wake up thinking ‘is this really mine?’ But it is,” her mother laughed. Maya braced herself over how this would end up getting further and further out of hand, but at the same time she wanted deeply not to assume the worst. “Now, tonight, it’s all of yours,’ too, so please make yourselves at home.”</p><p> </p><p>“I had to promise my Mom I’d have my homework done by the time I came home,” Nadine revealed.</p><p> </p><p>“Well you’re not going home first thing in the morning, are you?” her mother gave Nadine a bit of a conspiratorial look. “Isn’t tonight supposed to be about having fun?” Nadine smiled in agreement. “Right, so whenever you guys are ready to eat we’ll just give a call to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom,” Maya muttered low, signaling with a look, rather than having to spell out how she might have been several toes into overstepping. Her mother stalled mid word, and Maya watched her make the quickest turnaround – often credited, according to her, to her ‘improv days’ – and tell them she would get out of their hair. “I’m just going to hop in for a quick shower and change, long day at the theater,” she explained, moving toward her room.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya said you guys moved here because you got a new job, were you an actor in New York?” Asher started to ask, and Maya felt she knew exactly where this was headed, until… Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“Were you on Law &amp; Order?” he asked. “Hasn’t everyone out there been?” Maya’s right hand went to cover her face; the left resisted with difficulty the urge to slap the boy upside the head. Her mother’s face froze like someone trying to give the image of a calm sea on the outside, while on the inside… raging, crashing waters…</p><p> </p><p>“No, I… No,” she replied, raising her head finally, which told Maya she’d figured out her story. “I am dedicated to the stage, I am not out to get on television,” she laughed candidly, as far as she tried.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t convince a single one of them. If ever she had pleading powers toward her mother, Maya harnessed every ounce of them. She had been caught up in her mother’s quest to book a role on any one of those shows since… longer than she could remember, but she specifically recalled being roped into running lines with her on some occasions, while on others she had been solidly unsettled in judging her mother’s various death scenes or dead body poses. And every time she didn’t get it, she would crank out so much drama that Maya had half a mind to film her and send that to every casting person in the city.</p><p> </p><p>“The stage,” her mother repeated, pulling herself together. “I’m focusing on the stage," she told the group with a smile, and when Maya smiled at her, she smiled brighter still. There was something to be said for her mother’s drive, when hope seemed so imprudent in their family.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we’re very thankful that you would have us all over, Miss Hart,” Lucas spoke up. “We’ve never actually had a sleepover all of us together.”</p><p> </p><p>“My fault,” Nadine lifted her hand, and Zay reached over to pull it down, shaking his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all,” her mother waved them off, a beaming smile on her face. “Anything for my baby girl,” she turned to Maya. She just had to look away… again. “You know you guys are all she talks about, you’ve really been…”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, can we talk for a second?” Maya talked over her before reaching to nudge her toward the kitchen, all but pushing her toward it. “Be right back!” she called over her shoulder to the others. “Won’t be long!”</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t going to look back at them, not right now. The only thing she could picture their faces looking like was a collection of ‘How fast can I get out, I’m not sleeping here,’ or ‘Is that really her mother?’ Maybe it wouldn’t be like that, probably not, but once again her nervous self had gained control.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0039"><h2>39. Her Mother With Boundaries</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She would have wanted the room to be bigger, to give her the chance to put as much distance between them and her friends as possible. She pulled her mother into the furthest corner, resisted the urge to have them both crouch on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s the matter?” her mother asked. Maya motioned for her to talk lower. “Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to? Honey, they’re your friends, and I know this hasn’t been easy for you, I just thought they deserved to know about how much they’ve been helping.”</p><p> </p><p>Her mother was trying to look out for her, she could see that, and she could see it better now than she had been willing to see it before. But no matter how hard she tried to focus on that and nothing else, she just didn’t know how to. She wanted to tell her, how she needed this day to work, how she couldn’t have it go wrong, and why, but didn’t she know it already? All she could make herself say was…</p><p> </p><p>“I need you to keep away… Mom, please? I will go and be with them, but you can’t be… in there with us just hanging around, okay? You could… You could go and see Hildy and Sara. Didn’t Hildy say you guys should have a movie night at some point? You could have it tonight, we’ll be fine…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, as much as I trust you, I am not leaving the six of you kids here unsupervised, okay? Now I get it, I was your age once, and I put your grandma through… well, let’s not get into details, but there is a point, and here it is: I’m not going anywhere. If you want me to keep away, that’s what I’ll do, but I will be here. Do you get that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she bowed her head.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” her mother hooked her finger under her chin, raising it until their eyes could meet. “Get out there, have some fun. When you’re hungry, we’ll call in a couple pizzas, you won’t even see me,” she swore, and Maya was halfway relieved and humbled. “They look like nice kids, what I saw of them so far. Even that one who brought up You-Know-What,” her mother gave a shudder.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay,” Maya nodded with a smirk. “He brought us cookies from his GiGi,” she revealed, and her mother made a noise that made Maya think she had just bumped Zay up in her esteem.</p><p> </p><p>“Then the twins,” she counted off Asher and Dylan, and Maya snorted, “Which one’s the walking scar?”</p><p> </p><p>“Dylan, with the long hair. I’ll keep him away from sharp corners. Asher’s got him, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay. And Homework Girl, you make sure she has some fun, too. I can hide her textbooks,” her mother whispered. Maya shook her head. “Fine, but no homework tonight, got it?” Maya gave a firm salute. “Now who am I forgetting?” her mother asked, making too much of a show of thinking on the answer for Maya to think she didn’t know exactly who she’d left out, and the amused sort of mischief in her eyes made Maya’s concern rise back up.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom…” she begged, grasping her hands. “Don’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“I think it’s sweet, how he’s been looking after you, showing you around, bringing you in with his friends…” She wasn’t even going to mention the shelves thing right now. Or any number of little things in the past two months that would have made her mother discuss Lucas even more.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s a good friend,” she only said. “They all are.”</p><p> </p><p>“Get back out there. I’ll be sneaky,” her mother promised, and Maya squinted. “Hey, I can, I… Don’t you laugh, Maya Penelope Hart,” she commanded, with a barely contained smile.</p><p> </p><p>“I would never,” Maya countered with mock shock.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother pointed out of the kitchen, and she turned, standing on the spot for a moment. She had never had something like this with her, not in what felt like a long time, if ever. But she was also remembering what had led them to this room, this moment.</p><p> </p><p>It was better off like this, keeping these boundaries. And her mother was alright with this, while her friends were out there, on their own, in her house… who knew what they were up to… And when was she going to stop caring so much? Maybe she wasn’t as back to herself as she’d been thinking, these past few weeks.</p><p> </p><p>“Going soon?” her mother whispered.</p><p> </p><p>“Any second now,” Maya whispered back. Her mother came to stand right behind her.</p><p> </p><p>“So did Guide Boy bring some cookies, too?” she whispered, and Maya sprang forward at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, okay, I’m going, I’m going,” she threw a look to her mother before heading back to her friends in the living room.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0040"><h2>40. Her Mother With Conflicts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If nothing else, she was relieved to find they weren’t all just standing around looking bored or ready to be anywhere but at her house. When she walked back in, they looked back at her like she might have gone to discuss laundry or any other random boring thing.</p><p> </p><p>“Question,” Zay raised his hand, and Maya pointed at him and squinted.</p><p> </p><p>“Better not be about Law &amp; Order,” she insisted. “We do not speak those words in this house.” He blinked, slowly raising his second hand to show surrender. “Proceed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you have anything resembling a basket?”</p><p> </p><p>They were soon out in the yard, a trashcan perched up on the fence. Dylan had brought the ball, in case they might have been in the mood to have another rematch. Instead, they had decided to find out who could make the most baskets in a row. They would each go, one at a time, and when they would miss they would be out. Maya had thought for sure she would be the first one out. They all played so often already before she arrived, it seemed to be expected that they would surpass her.</p><p> </p><p>Asher had been out first, claiming he had gotten the sun in his eyes but finally moving to take up the task of fishing out the ball and bouncing it to the next shooter. Maya wondered what it would take for her to have a hoop in this yard.</p><p> </p><p>Zay had been the second to fall, and it was a few rounds later that Maya did miss. It was down to Dylan, Nadine, and Lucas, and the three of them out of the challenge would cheer on the ones still in it. Lucas missed next, and after what felt like forever, Dylan had missed, leaving Nadine as the victor. The celebration was loud and bordering on chaotic, right up until Dylan nearly got their ‘basket’ to knock him out.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting on the grass, they were already discussing their having a rematch. Maya lay down, looking up at the clouds and wondering why she felt like something was off all of a sudden. It had all been fine while they were playing, but now they’d stopped, and sat, and she felt her mind was somewhere else. It wasn’t the others, not at all. They were here, and it made her happy, so it wasn’t that. What else was it going to be?</p><p> </p><p>After a few moments, she turned her head to look at the windows, as though she expected to find her mother planted there, watching them. She wasn’t, but now, thinking about her mother, she knew that was what had her so out of it, of course. How easy was it, time and again, to just go off and do her own thing? Back in New York, she would just go and be at Riley’s and that would be the end of it. Or if they would somehow be at her house, they would usually keep to her room, with the door closed. She’d never given it much thought, and she’d never gotten this feeling.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Lucas called, and she turned back toward him. “Everything okay?” Had they been on their own, she might have said something. Ever since that day at the bus stop, it had been that way. She would look at him and she would know that if she needed him to listen, he would do it, without a second of hesitation. But it was all of them right now, and that was how it should be, and she wasn’t going to pull him aside for that. She just had to… to…</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be right back, I… You guys hungry? My Mom’s going to order pizza, I have to go tell her that we’re ready.” She stood up, brushing at her clothes as the others called out toppings.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no way, not anchovies, not again,” Asher told Dylan. “You made me eat those and I got sick. That’s nasty stuff and the juice will get in.”</p><p> </p><p>“Pineapple then?” Dylan shrugged, and Asher fell back on the grass in exasperation.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas hadn’t piped in on the topping debacle. He was looking at her like he knew there was something she wanted to say. She signaled him, one hand half-risen: I’ve got it covered.</p><p> </p><p>She walked back to the house and once inside she went around until she found her mother, sitting on the ground in her room, leaning against her bed with what looked like a script in her lap like she’d stopped reading it. She looked up and met Maya’s gaze.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, baby girl. Are you guys ready to eat?” Maya nodded, and her mother went to stand, but she stopped and sat back down. “Something wrong?” she asked. Maya walked into the room, shutting the door before turning back to her mother. “Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Can we talk? I think I had it wrong before.” Her mother tapped the ground next to her and Maya went to join her.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0041"><h2>41. Her Mother With Conversation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was so far from anything she’d been doing before. This wasn’t the kind of talk they’d had, and if they did then it had happened so long ago that she didn’t even remember. She’d stopped trying, because she couldn’t let go, couldn’t keep her mind from going to the dark places, to the holes in her life, that all circled back to home, to her mother, her father…</p><p> </p><p>“You told me, when we were going to move here, you said our lives would be better here, that it was a great opportunity for us. I didn’t want to listen. All I could think about was everything I was going to lose. I still do, and I still miss them… all the time. The thing is, I’m not… unhappy, and things have been good. In some places they’ve been better, just like you said they would be. I want them to keep getting better, and you…”</p><p> </p><p>“Where did all your drawings go? In your room. I went to bring your clean clothes and they were all gone.” Maya froze. Of all the things she could have said after all that… “Do you think I haven’t seen what you’ve just told me? I’ve been so relieved, after being so scared that you wouldn’t manage to adjust when I brought you here. Every new page on your wall has meant the world.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t want them to see,” Maya admitted. “I didn’t know how it would go, them being here, so I decided to take them down, just while they’re here.”</p><p> </p><p>“And what happens the next time they come over? Or was that just a one time thing?” her mother asked and she shook her head. “Are you going to do this dance every time one or more of them comes over? It’s a part of who you are, why hide it from them?” She bowed her head. “What else have you kept from them? Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I never really talk about… Dad,” she told her, that little old knot in her stomach giving a familiar tug. “It wouldn’t change anything anyway, them knowing that he’s gone, that…”</p><p> </p><p>She stopped, shaking her head. She didn’t want to go there. And when she looked back at her mother, she knew that she'd guessed exactly what she’d meant to say. And there was that look, the one right behind her eyes, she would get when the subject of her father would come up.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t ask, I don’t want to think about it and start to wonder if it wasn’t just you, if I…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, it wasn’t you that made him leave, and don’t even think that you did,” her mother pleaded at once. “Blame me all you like, but not you… never you,” she went on, and hearing the desperation in her voice made Maya feel a catch in her breath. “But you already do, don’t you? How long?” Maya felt her mother’s hands come to rest at her cheeks, just as she felt the first of her own tears. Her mother looked ready to shed some of her own. She was so upset, too, in ways Maya couldn’t have understood. But just as she’d looked back down for a moment, she’d seen a stain, on her sleeve. Grass. She’d forgotten what she’d come in for, and what was out there.</p><p> </p><p>“I had it wrong before,” she said, reaching up to dry her face as she attempted to pull herself together. “I don’t want you to keep away. You should be out there. Maybe not with us all the time, but I want them to know you, the you they don’t know, the you… I still feel like I don’t really know either, sometimes… but I want to,” she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“That… that sounds good to me,” her mother declared, and seeing this new flood of emotions, not of sadness but of compliment and pride, made Maya smile. “And that,” her mother nodded to her face, “That’s even better. So, let’s order these pizzas, and then… well, we’ll go on from there.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” Maya agreed. “I told them not to bring up You-Know-What again,” she added, and her mother looked glad to hear it. “I just… I want tonight…”</p><p> </p><p>“To be memorable?” her mother asked. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Come on,” she stood, pulling her along.</p><p> </p><p>As she relayed the information on what toppings her friends wanted or not, Maya couldn’t help but look at her mother. It felt as though she was getting to know her again, just as she’d told her. It gave her the mad little courage to think there might have been such a thing as hope, for the two of them, to start with. And after that, then who knew?</p><p> </p><p>“Now,” her mother turned to her after the call had ended, “I may have an idea for something, for you all tonight. I’ll tell you what it is, and if you don’t want to do it, then we don’t do it, that simple. Deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Maya agreed.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so I was thinking…” She had some instinct to feel as though she should brace herself. But her mother’s idea didn’t sound bad at all; it actually sounded like something she’d have fun with, and the same went for her friends… who seemed to have put up Nadine and Dylan to a rematch, from what she could see through the window.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0042"><h2>42. Her Mother With Fun & Games</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pizzas had arrived, and they had all piled in around the table. They didn’t have seven chairs in the house; three of them had been borrowed from Hildy. Maya sat with her mother there at her side; she’d managed to have Nadine on her other side instead of any of the boys, thinking she might have been the safest bet. Her mother had it in her to not go down topics that might have made her uneasy, Maya could see, and she helped her in any way she knew how to.</p><p> </p><p>After the pizzas had disappeared, her mother had done the same. Lucas and Zay had led the charge in picking up and cleaning the dishes, soon joined by Asher and Dylan. Nadine looked as though she had not forgotten the promise she’d made to her mother and she was thinking about her textbooks. To distract her, Maya pulled her aside and told her in secret what her mother had planned. Soon, Nadine had put the thought of homework aside again.</p><p> </p><p>“I brought a couple movies,” Lucas revealed, once the kitchen had been dealt with. “They’re some of our favorites, not sure if you’ve seen them…”</p><p> </p><p>“That… might have to wait,” Maya told him, hearing her mother moving nearby. “How would you guys feel about some… well, let’s call it live entertainment.”</p><p> </p><p>As horribly scarring as she would have labelled the scene readings for they-knew-what, Maya couldn’t say there hadn’t been some of her mother’s audition material that had amused her over the years. She remembered many times being asked to read out one thing or another and being so caught up in the ridiculousness of the text – or her mother’s attempts to perform it – that she would want to burst out laughing, prompting her to do so, much to her mother’s dismay. There was a whole box of those that had been kept ‘just in case,’ and as it turned out, the case had presented itself.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s nervous side had finally stepped aside to allow some fearlessness to return to her, allowing her to step up and demonstrate some such ridiculous scenario, and as baffled as the boys and Nadine had first been by what was happening before them, it hadn’t been long that the Harts had captivated them, and eventually incited them to take a turn of their own. The laughter permeated the room, the whole house, it seemed, so much so that the small structure felt like a grand theater. The highlight had been to see her mother’s awestruck reaction at Zay’s turn, telling him he might consider acting school to further what she deemed a natural talent. The pride in him had almost been too much.</p><p> </p><p>When all was said and done, they had settled in with one of the movies Lucas had brought. Maya had already seen it, but then so had they. She sat on the couch with Nadine at one side and Dylan at the other, while the other boys were on the ground in front of them. She had invited her mother to join them, and her friends had done the same, but she had told them to go on without her. She had played her part, and now it was up to them to do whatever they wanted to do next.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was occasionally distracted by the boys on the ground, Lucas in particular, as he sat directly in front of her. More than once her leg had stretched out so that she might poke his shoulder with her foot when he talked too much. One time he had moved at the last moment and she had got him in the back of the head. He whipped around to look at her and she made a face to proclaim her innocence along with the shrug of her shoulders. He didn’t buy it, and his look said something more along the line of ‘the next time I’m pulling you down here.’ She had weighed her options, but the opportunity had not presented itself again, so they never found out whether or not he would have done it.</p><p> </p><p>They would stay a while longer there, talking about this thing and that, sharing whatever story that came along, filling some more of the wider landscape of the group’s history for her. Maya briefly considered the talk she’d had with her mother earlier, about the things she had been keeping from them, but as much as she knew she would come to tell them, about her art, and her father, she wasn’t going to do it here and now. This night was about everything they’d made of it; her secrets could wait a bit longer.</p><p> </p><p>In time they had needed to split the group. The boys headed down to the basement, while Maya and Nadine headed for Maya’s room. Whether one half or the other would attempt to sneak up on the other was left to be seen, as would be her mother’s response if either one or the other ‘tried anything.’ The girls had changed into their pyjamas, and Maya had once again convinced Nadine to step away from the textbooks, leaving it to the next morning.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, they sat in the bay window, facing one another, feet gathered up in between. It was the first time she’d sat here with someone else who was neither her mother nor Serious Sara, with someone who was her friend, and she couldn’t ignore how much it felt as though it mattered. She told Nadine as much, that she’d sat so often with Riley in her bay window, how important it had been to them. Her own window and its seat were smaller than what she’d known in New York, but having it here had been a source of comfort since she’d come to Texas.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you talk to them a lot? Your friends back home?”</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll chat on Skype a lot,” Maya told her. “Some days it’s harder to find the time… But we write, too.” She didn’t go on explaining how it seemed they missed opportunities now more than at first, because she wasn’t sure – or maybe she didn’t want to know – if it was because she was off with Nadine and the boys so much, or if she and Riley and Farkle were starting to grow apart. She didn’t want to think the second option might be correct.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to go back for Christmas? You have family back there? Your…” Nadine stopped herself, and if Maya had been wondering if the question was on her friends’ minds, she knew it was on at least one of theirs.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t know about Christmas yet,” she admitted, then, deciding, “My father’s been gone for years, he… he’s got another family, I’m not…”</p><p> </p><p>“That sucks,” Nadine frowned, and Maya nodded in complete agreement. “If you stay for the holidays, you and your Mom should come to our party. My Mom’s not big on gatherings, but she loves Christmas. You know those houses with so many lights you can see them a mile away? That’s us.” Maya smirked and accepted.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to go throw things at the guys?” she asked and Nadine sat up, raising her chin.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you’d never ask…”</p><p> </p><p>Armed with a basket load of rolled up socks, the girls had rained their soft ammo on their unsuspecting targets from the top of the stairs. They had attempted to snatch up the socks and throw them back, but none of them hit, and just as the boys were coming to chase after them, they all froze at Katy Hart’s call, and the girls scampered back to Maya’s room still laughing.</p><p> </p><p>“We better get some sleep while we can,” Nadine declared. “Revenge will be early and swift. Plus…”</p><p> </p><p>“Homework, I know…” Maya nodded as they got to lie down and try to sleep, though if any of them were feeling as energized as her, no one would sleep.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0043"><h2>43. Their Game For a Field Trip</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Christmas break was almost here, but today was somewhere in the middle between school and the holidays. They had all been packed up on the school bus, which now deposited them in front of the museum. The mood varied from those who dreaded having to stay awake through the visit, to those who came so informed they might as well have stayed home. And then there was the pair halfway down the right row of seats.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had yanked Lucas to sit next to her as soon as he was within reach, much to his surprise and confusion.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so it looks like we’re on the same… horse,” she’d nodded up to the front seat, where her mother and his mother sat side by side. “I don’t think they know who they’re sitting next to yet, but it won’t be long. They just had to be our chaperones, didn’t they…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know why I didn’t want her there, and I can sort of get why you wouldn’t either… I mean, because of everything you’ve told me, but they’re going to know they’re our friend’s mother as soon as they introduce… see, there it is,” he’d said, and in the next moment Maya had pulled him down and out of sight before the two blondes in front could look their way. “Today just got worse, didn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s happening down here?” They’d looked up to find Zay staring down from over the seat in front of them, Nadine equally perched at his side, while Asher and Dylan stood in the aisle staring down at them, too. “Is there something the two of you need to tell us?” he asked in a cheerful voice and with an amused grin.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but I don’t think you want to hear it,” Maya spoke in the same tone, though hers had a sharper edge and Zay had backed up at once, while Asher and Dylan had hurried to go and take the seat behind them.</p><p> </p><p>The recent weeks had allowed enough to be shared between them that it went without saying, the nightmares they had envisioned with their own mother roaming about, let alone the both of them at once. He knew that her mother could be something of a loose cannon, in so many ways, while she knew how he felt his mother saw him, and what she wouldn’t see. She knew that, left unchecked, she would tail him all day, and it would make him miserable. Dealing with the potential of what her mother might say or do was her own burden to bear, but she didn’t want him having to carry his own alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hey,” she had reached up her hands to signal the two sat behind and then sat ahead so they would listen. As the bus had rolled on toward its destination, a plan had been laid out, the goal of which became very clear at once. Their friends had listened with intent, like soldiers listening to their general. Lucas could only look on and listen, too, though he knew his part in this scheme would not be the same as theirs. They all sounded eager and willing; it should make the day more entertaining, as they’d said. He had some doubts, but he would keep them quiet.</p><p> </p><p>By the time the bus had stopped in front of the museum it was all set, and all they would need would be a moment to set it all in motion.</p><p> </p><p>Stepping off, Maya was reminded once again of how different winter in Texas could be from winter in New York. A little Farkle-like voice in her head would say it wasn’t exactly winter yet, but it would feel like splitting hairs to her. She knew what the world was meant to look like at this time of year, and this was not it. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Maybe she needed this plan for more than its obvious nature.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas, for his part, had been keeping an eye on his mother and Maya’s. He didn’t know what they had said to one another. What had his mother said? What had her mother been told, what had she learned? What would it mean for his and Maya’s friendship if she disagreed now, disapproved of him?</p><p> </p><p>“Eyes front, Huckleberry,” Maya said, and he turned back to her, forgetting what he’d been thinking about. The nickname had stuck to him since she’d first given it, and he welcomed it as a mark of her trying to get his attention.</p><p> </p><p>They followed the group as they walked into the museum, keeping at all times their awareness of the chaperones’ positions.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure about this?” he leaned at her ear as they went, and she waved him off. Of course she was sure; it was her idea, and she would not have offered it if she hadn’t been sure.</p><p> </p><p>“You all know what you need to do,” she told the others. “Wait until I say to go.” Their four trusted soldiers nodded at once, waiting with anticipation to set their scheme in motion. Lucas thought he might have just gulped.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0044"><h2>44. Their Game For Distractions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they had seen the group begin to move forward and begin their tour, it was in Maya’s opinion that they would not get another chance, and so the soldiers had been sent to do as they had been asked. She and Lucas stood back, gazes divided to watch as each of their mothers was approached.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas watched as Asher and Dylan swept in on his mother, one at either side of her. His mother had known them both since they’d met in little league. She was particularly fond of Dylan, protective. She had known his mother, his birth mother, since the both of them had been children. They hadn’t been particularly close, but they had become friends when Lucas and Dylan had become friends, and when she’d left, when she’d abandoned her family, Melinda Friar had immediately taken it upon herself to provide little Dylan what support she could grant. Lucas and the rest of their friends would joke at times that his mother had as good as adopted him as her second son.</p><p> </p><p>Today, this connection was put to good and noble use, as the pull that would hold Mrs. Friar’s attention for as long as it was required. And with Asher’s assistance, he could be confident that she would be plenty occupied, too much to realize her actual son wasn’t there to have her… coddle him… in her own special, so awkward way.</p><p> </p><p>As for Maya, she knew how Zay – with Nadine’s assistance – would get to her mother and keep her sufficiently occupied, because she’d suggested it herself. She knew that Zay would have her once he mentioned an interest in following her advice, to further the acting ability she’d told him he had when he and the others had come to sleep over. In no time, she would start to speak and would not stop, to the point where she would forget she was even at the museum. Zay had not been particularly thrilled with the idea, but the girls had convinced him together. They were getting to a point, Maya and Nadine together, where they formed something like an unbreakable wall.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s primary concerns here seemed to have more to do with the potential of her mother’s being allowed to go Full Katy on her whole class, and anyone else who should find themselves in the museum with them. There was still a risk of it, but she trusted Zay and Nadine more than enough. She needed to, or else there would be no point in moving forward with what she had in mind.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think they talked about, when they were on the bus? Your mother and mine? Did your mother look… upset or anything?” Lucas asked, in a tone more nervous than Maya actually heard as she kept on checking on Zay and Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>“Knowing my mother, it’s possible yours now thinks she’s an actual southern belle or something,” Maya shrugged. “She’s had that one in her back pocket longer than I can remember.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right… okay,” he frowned to himself. She whacked him on the arm. “What’s that for?” he complained, and she looked back at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Woke you up,” she grinned, and when he still looked confused, “You’re not paying attention, you’re somewhere else, and I need you here right now.” After a moment, she made herself serious again. “Where’s your head?” He stared at her, and if he had anything to say – which she knew he did – he chose not to say it, not now. That decided it; she had to act, and fast. “Okay, are you ready?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready for what?” he asked back, looking over at his mother. She and Dylan were still talking along, and she didn’t look like she was thinking about him too much. Asher was following along, and by the looks of him, he was ready to jump in with any number of facts on the items they were passing by, in case Mrs. Friar started to get distracted from her distractions.</p><p> </p><p>Maya took one more quick look toward her mother. She had Zay by the arm and was talking animatedly, just barely managing to keep her voice down by the looks of her. Zay looked in solid but veiled misery, while Nadine worked overtime not to burst out laughing. Maya had already decided that, after telling him that his brilliant bit of acting right there might be proving her mother’s point, she would owe him big time and would gladly repay him.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready for our getaway,” Maya turned back to Lucas with a glimmer in her eye. He wasn’t catching on so fast, not until she went and locked her hand around his wrist, took a quick look about, and finally pulled him into a run, slipping out of the pack, where they had taken up the rear, without anyone noticing a thing.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, what are you…” he whispered.</p><p> </p><p>“Make a choice, do you want to go with them, or come with me?” she asked. He looked to the quickly receding pack, then to her again. The moment she could see him considering her side of it, she had his answer, and off they went.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0045"><h2>45. Their Game For Uncertainty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He didn’t know how he felt about being dragged off by the arm, but he wasn’t arguing over it either. When they stopped, the rest of their group completely out of sight now, all he saw was her, the way she smiled like they’d pulled off some great caper. She was happy, which made him that much more apprehensive about speaking any doubt, but at the same time he felt that he kind of had to. Now that the moment had passed, reality was working in him again.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should go back.” She turned and looked at him now with disbelief, maybe wondering who he was all of a sudden; he was wondering it, too. “They’ll know we’re gone, and then I’ll get right back to where I was before… When I came back to school, after my suspension. They’re starting to look at me like I’m okay now, I don’t want the other way again.” He hadn’t expected it all to come out so much like panic, but now he’d heard it; she’d heard it, too, and the disbelief went away.</p><p> </p><p>“I swear we’ll be back before they know we’re gone, and if we’re not, please feel free to tell them I went away and you were only trying to find me and bring me back. I’ll say I had to go to the bathroom, or I got distracted and couldn’t find the others. You’ll be the hero of the day, yeah? Good Guide.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right…” he spoke slowly, agreeing to the easy solution. He did wonder what she had in mind. Back on the bus they had only really gotten so far as to discuss how to keep both their mothers too occupied to do or say anything that might be problematic. He didn’t know if this had been part of her plan all along.</p><p> </p><p>“So, can you relax a little? Yeah?” she smiled encouragingly. He took a breath, let it out. “Alright, well done, now let’s go,” she motioned for him to follow.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” he told her, and she stopped. “In case I don’t get to say it later, if anything my mother tells yours means that we can’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“What, be friends anymore?” she scoffed. “If you think anything could make that happen, then maybe you haven’t been paying enough attention. If you knew what I was like, back in New York… but that’s not the point I should be making. That point, the good one, is that we’re never going to be anything less than friends, not to me. You got that, or do I need to get a stool and say it closer to your ear?” she reached up to yank his ear, as he pulled back with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“I heard you, I heard you,” he promised. “And I always want to be your friend, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Makes things easier then,” she told him. “Can we get going now? Otherwise we’ll have to go back before we get to do anything, if I want to get us back in time like I said I would.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you have in mind?” Lucas asked, as they started to walk along.</p><p> </p><p>“You really don’t want to know, not all of it. Even you couldn’t take it,” she stared up at him as good as though she was the taller of the two. “For today though, I want to see that there’s still a kid in this really tall friend of mine.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not that tall,” he insisted, “You’re just kind of…” There was no mistaking the word his mouth had started to shape out, but he caught the warning in her eyes and followed it until he knew how to course correct into “… just as tall as you should be.” She stood a moment, quietly considering this. He nodded, she nodded back.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyway…” she cleared her throat, “Let’s just go out there and… have fun, right?” She didn’t want him to have to see it that way, but maybe her mother and his were not the only ones here today who were in need of some distraction. She saw it in him, now more than ever. He had been cast in a role that he wanted so much to get out of, and in doing so, he was carrying too much of that weight, that came out into stress and worry. He was her friend, as she’d promised. He was more than that, he was her first friend here, the first new face that had come to mean anything to her, especially when she’d needed it so much. It would have been impossible for her to just sit back and do nothing when she saw he needed something. He needed a distraction.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we can do that,” he declared, frowning at himself. He was starting to see what she meant about wanting to see if there was still a kid in him; he was as unsure as she was right then.</p><p> </p><p>“Ever been in here before?” she asked him as they went ahead. He nodded. “Few times?” He nodded again. “Where’s the weird stuff, do you know?” His grin came at once, and he gave another nod. “Take us to the weird stuff, please?”</p><p> </p><p>“Look at that, I’m your guide again,” he raised his chin before returning her earlier gesture and leading her off by the arm.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0046"><h2>46. Their Game For Exploring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a brief moment when they had nearly run across their class and its chaperones, and in scrambling to evade being seen they had nearly crashed into a sculpture before finding cover.</p><p> </p><p>“Dylan would have run right into that, wouldn’t he?” Maya laughed, needing to catch her breath for a moment, and Lucas laughed, too, doing the same.</p><p> </p><p>For the past ten minutes, they had been running about – careful not to do any of this where security guards might have told them to stop – in search of ‘the weird stuff.’ The exhibitions had changed since the last time Lucas had been here, and so he had no idea where to go. The truth, as they realized in time, was that it didn’t matter. Just running around trying to find something was proving to be fun on its own.</p><p> </p><p>And they had not been disappointed on their original goal. They had come across plenty of weird things. It was never a matter of laughing at it. Anything that would fit the bill they would stop to observe with great curiosity, attempting to understand the message behind it all. And then they would go off to find another and another, right up to the moment where they’d seen their class and nearly caused a very expensive catastrophe. They had almost forgotten why they were here, and how they’d eventually need to go back to their group.</p><p> </p><p>“We can go now if you want to,” Maya told Lucas somewhat reluctantly. “I mean it doesn’t look like they know we’ve been gone yet,” she pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>Asher was presently talking about one work, as Mrs. Friar and Dylan appeared to be listening to him with great intent. And then there was Zay, who looked as though he was now actively participating in his conversation with Maya’s mother, as though he had changed his view on his acting prospects for real. Trailing behind the pair of them, Nadine looked so very bored.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I guess,” he started, and even with her head turned away he could see her disappointment at that prospect. It would have been more responsible to go back now, especially with his previous concerns. But was it what he wanted right now? “But we’re all out of breath. And if we go now, they’ll wonder why we’re like that, so maybe we could just walk around until we’re okay again.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she replied, and he heard her smile. “We might lose them all again… It could be a while before we find them again,” she pointed out, turning to face him. He shrugged. “Doesn’t look like they miss us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then they won’t mind,” he decided, leading her off the way they’d been headed just before they’d nearly been caught; it led in the opposite direction. Maya beamed with anticipation, and it was all he needed to know it was exactly what they were meant to do.</p><p> </p><p>He had really been here many times before. He was sure they had a field trip here every other year. So even though the exhibitions were different, he still had a pretty good idea of where he was headed at all times and could predict where the group would be headed with fair certainty, though he kept this fact to himself.</p><p> </p><p>Running – or walking – through the museum with Maya, he had not thought about his mother at all until he had seen her again, and when he’d seen how she was still distracted, it had allowed his concerns to leave him almost as soon as they’d made their attempt at a return. Instead, he had carried on this sort of adventure, just him and the blonde out of New York. What he was starting to see at the moment was how different Maya felt in this place. He didn’t know how to explain it except to say that she had never seemed exactly like this before.</p><p> </p><p>And she was feeling it for herself, too. When it was just him and her walking around, it felt as though they could have been anywhere. It could have been Austin like it could have been New York. She kind of liked to see it that way.</p><p> </p><p>They had almost been caught a second time, minutes later. If it had not been for bored Nadine seeing them walking quietly the way they did, it could all have been over, especially as neither Lucas nor Maya had noticed what was about to happen. With a great sigh of apprehension, Nadine had raised her voice to ask Miss Hart a question of her own. Before long, she had been roped into the conversation with Zay.</p><p> </p><p>But then the oblivious pair had managed to move onward, unseen, so she’d just have to collect on this favor later. In the meantime, Lucas and Maya would carry on their exploration of the museum, the time and the eventual need to return growing fainter by the minute.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0047"><h2>47. Their Game For Discovery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had been anxious for this field trip even before this plan had come into the picture. Ever since she’d started drawing more, since her departure from New York, she had come to find a new appreciation of art. She had always been taken with it in some shape or form. She remembered going to museums when she was little. Her mother would take her to them sometimes, and she could spend hours there, though they never stayed that long. This was different though, and it had felt that way from the start. She spent so much time immersed in her own work now, and looking at the work of others it was like she felt it, all the work, the emotion… It made her feel everything.</p><p> </p><p>Had they been with the group, they might have been taken along faster, forced to move to another piece whether they were ready or not.</p><p> </p><p>The search for weird things had ended, and their need to eventually return to the group was just shy of forgotten. They had been walking on their own for what felt like five minutes when it was closer to fifteen, maybe even twenty. They would come in front of a painting, and Maya would get this sort of hypnotized look on her face, so Lucas would leave her be, his own look divided between admiring the painting, too, and monitoring signs of life from his friend. When she’d be ready to move on, he would know, and off they would go, until they reached another painting that caught her eye, and then the cycle would begin again.</p><p> </p><p>They had been at this painting now, unbeknownst to them, for eight minutes already. Maya hadn’t shown any sign of being ready or willing to move yet, and so they didn’t. Had he been able to read her mind, he would have found her in the middle of a deep negotiation with herself, wondering how she might get a hold of canvas and paint and brushes. When she spoke, the first time since they’d been walking to catch their breaths, he almost jumped in surprise.</p><p> </p><p>“How do they even know to do that?” she asked, the tone in her voice showing her mind was still very much devoted to the painting she was observing. “Is that just what the world looks like in their heads and their hand just knows?”</p><p> </p><p>“They take classes, maybe?” he tried to answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Not all of them though,” she shook her head. “Not like that. And it has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?” It sounded to him like she was wondering just where it all came from, like she needed to know. Now he knew where he’d seen this state in her. Art class. She was doing well in most of their classes, from what he’d seen and heard, in some better than in others, but in art class this was how she’d be, just sort of… curious, inquisitive.</p><p> </p><p>“You really love all this, don’t you?” he asked, and she smiled, still staring at the painting.</p><p> </p><p>“How could I not?” she told him, and he looked back at the painting, too. She was so taken with wondering what was going through all these artists’ minds when they did what they did, but in this moment, he would have given anything to see the world how she saw it, here in this museum. It made him smile, too.</p><p> </p><p>When Maya could finally detach herself from that one painting, they had moved away from it, in a very sort of serene state, which he had to say he didn’t hate. They started to talk about their plans for the holidays. He told her about the various parties with his family and friends, the traditions… She wasn’t so forthcoming about her own traditions, but she did express her anticipation about finally returning to New York, seeing her friends…</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I’m really glad we did this,” he told her. “I’m glad that you talked me into it, or dragged into it might be more accurate,” he added.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t leave me much of a choice,” she told him in return. “You’d think any kid on a field trip would…” She stopped at once, like the words had knocked something loose, and now she saw it… and he saw it, too. They’d just remembered how they’d ended up here.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, we really need to get back,” he looked at the time. “I think the trip’s almost over.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, no, no, don’t go back to that nervous thing, you’re fine, we’re good. Where do you think they are by now?” He thought for a moment, and when he looked like he had it, she raised her hand. “Lead the way,” she told him, which he mistook for an invitation to grab her arm like before, and instead made that he took hold of her hand. They stood in silence for a moment before both could withdraw their hands.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s… it’s that way,” he told her, and they went off in a hurry, putting that fleeting few seconds aside. They really had to get back.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0048"><h2>48. Their Game For Innocence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finding the group again proved to be harder than they had anticipated, and neither of them was ready to give up and cash in their excuse by asking a guard to direct them. They’d been gone for the better part of an hour, the museum may have been big but it wasn’t that big, even if they claimed they had been distracted by the art, which wouldn’t have actually been so far from the truth. So they were just going to have to keep looking.</p><p> </p><p>“There!” Lucas finally stopped and pointed, about a second before Maya stuck her hand over his mouth to shut him up.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, give us away when we’re almost home free,” she scolded, pulling her hand away awkwardly. He wouldn’t have known what to say, and he didn’t try. “Come on,” she whispered.</p><p> </p><p>They made a cautious approach. They doubted every single person in the group would be fooled, but if any of their classmates claimed that they’d been gone, they could easily claim back that they’d been there all along. Maya might even have found a way to create confusion, saying their accusers were the ones who’d been away and were trying to pin it on them, but it would have degenerated quickly, so it would really be a last resort.</p><p> </p><p>Besides, the only people they needed to make sure would not realize they had been gone were Melinda Friar and Katy Hart. From what they could see of them, they didn’t look as though they were aware of their children’s absence or in any way concerned. Asher and Dylan and Zay and Nadine were still doing their thing, and it was all the miracle they could need, and the only sign.</p><p> </p><p>“Just hurry to the back, like we were, but no running,” she told him before they went and did just that. Before long, they were in pace with the group. When one classmate here or there would look back in their direction and see them there, they couldn’t hide the fact that they were a tiny bit anxious to see whether anyone would say anything. But they didn’t, not a single one.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, everyone?” Lucas’ mother’s voice rose over them a moment later, and everyone came to a stop. “The bus will be leaving in ten minutes, so get to the restrooms now if you need them, we cannot be late.” She clapped her hands twice, and near half the group hurried off, parting the way for the woman to see her son. “Oh, my little honey Luke…” she made her way toward him – petrified – and Maya – stifling a laugh. “Honey, I am terribly sorry, I completely lost track of you, only I was having a talk with Dylan, you understand,” she lowered her voice in a ‘you know what I’m talking about’ way, mindful of Maya’s presence, not aware as to whether she knew the Orlandos’ situation, though she also had this sense of apology in her look toward her son’s friend that told them part of her conversation with Katy Hart had involved her husband and Maya’s father being gone. Maya wondered if this meant she’d be getting the same from her that Dylan did. “Oh, and then Asher was telling me so many interesting things about these works of art. Bright boy, that one.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” Lucas told her, and the woman moved off to supervise the group, just as Maya’s mother found her way toward them.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I didn’t even see the time go,” she told them. “I got to discussing the acting world with your Zay over there, and before I knew it, we were back here,” she went on, with that excited tone in her voice she would get when she talked about ‘her craft.’ Maya had the truest aim when it came to distracting her mother, a skill she’d developed a while ago, although its uses hadn’t always been of a noble nature, like it had been today, as far as she was concerned.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, we had fun,” she told her mother, tipping her head toward Lucas, who gave a nod. “It reminded me of when we’d go to museums when I was little,” she added, and as expected it brought a smile to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“It did?” she asked, and if not for Mrs. Friar calling her over, Maya thought she might have hugged her right then and there. Instead, she left with words to Lucas. “By the way, your mom wouldn’t stop going on about you back on the bus. She’s a little intense, but then look who you’re talking to. Now she wants us to ‘do lunch.’ How much is this going to cost me?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll do Chubbie’s if you talk her into it,” Lucas confessed, and Maya’s mother looked thrilled at the prospect, moving off to join ‘Mel.’ When she was gone, Lucas looked like he’d breathed a sigh of relief big enough to vacate both lungs.</p><p> </p><p>“So, all in all, good day?” Maya asked him. She didn’t know how she felt about their mothers becoming friends, but it was better than any other alternative. In the end, they had all accomplished what they’d set out to do. All that remained would be the settling of some debts with their soldiers…</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0049"><h2>49. Their Game for Riding Back</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The bus driver was getting an earful of Katy Hart for having yelled that they would be late, while Melinda Friar was off retrieving one missing kid who was still in the bathroom. Just when Maya had considered they’d gotten off without a hiccup… Although the rest of the bus seemed to be taking her mother’s side, so they weren’t so far gone.</p><p> </p><p>The six of them had gotten back in their seats, just as they’d been on the ride to the museum. There was a hush among them, like they had all decided to wait until the bus had taken off before they’d start talking about how all of their sides of the story of this field trip had gone.</p><p> </p><p>The straggler located, retrieved, and escorted on to the bus, they could now officially take off, which they did, the driver sufficiently humbled by Chaperone Hart. The noise mingled with the rise of conversations all around them, and soon the three pairs sat back to back converged as close as they could get, as they’d done earlier. It was a mess at first, questions piling on from front and back to the pair in the middle. Maya silenced them all, and Lucas turned to the two boys behind them.</p><p> </p><p>“How did it go?” he asked. He’d heard his mother’s version, but he wanted to hear theirs, too. He knew that Dylan’s bringing up his mother and how hard it was around the holidays wasn’t just a story he’d made up. Lucas knew it could have been awkward for his friend to bring it up, but he also knew that the ruse could be as beneficial to one as it would be to the other. His mother would have brought out all those things that made him care for her so much, and she would have given Dylan all of it, given him reassurance and comfort.</p><p> </p><p>“It was fine,” Dylan told him. “She asked if Mom and Dad and Kyle and I would come to dinner over the break. I said we would, same as every year.”</p><p> </p><p>“I may have emphasized how much ‘Dylan’ really liked that chocolate pie last year. There will probably be three of them on the table,” Asher added.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, can I get in on this?” Maya asked, having zoned out the moment the words ‘chocolate pie’ had been mentioned. Lucas didn’t even need to confirm she would get a similar invitation; they could hear their mothers laughing at the front of the bus. “By the way, I’m going to have questions later,” she told Asher. “Since you know so much about these paintings apparently.” Asher happily agreed. “Now you two,” Maya turned to Zay and Nadine in front of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we messed up,” Nadine told her. “Not me and him, you and I. He thinks he’s found his calling now.”</p><p> </p><p>“What, it’s not my fault I have this natural stage presence,” Zay defended himself, shortly before getting a playful shove from Nadine that almost sent him into the aisle.</p><p> </p><p>“What stage?” she laughed before turning back to Maya. “They just went on and on. First she asked him if he had experience, and no, playing a tree in our fifth grade play didn’t count,” she added before he could bring it up. “Then it was diction, and volume, and posture, and motivation, and practice, practice, practice. As soon as he got into it, I was in hell!” The outburst silenced, the five looked back at her in amazement. Maya reached out and patted her hand reassuringly.</p><p> </p><p>“Been there,” she promised her, and Nadine breathed out. “Otherwise, everything was fine?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah, sure,” Nadine spoke quietly, before turning back to Zay. “If it’s what you really want, I’ll be there, front and center. If you wake up tomorrow, next week, next month, and you still feel the same, even though you had this face,” she pointed to her own, “Then fine. If not, then… well, I’ll give you the I-told-you-so song and dance, okay, Tall Z?” Zay gulped, then nodded. “Good. So, what did you guys do?” she turned back to Maya and Lucas. “I saw you once, you didn’t even notice.” As surprised as the two of them were to hear about this missed close call, it was nothing compared to the three boys’ curiosity over their two friends there in the middle having been so caught up in whatever they’d been doing that they hadn’t seen how close they’d come to the group.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Zay grinned, earning a second smack from Nadine, who this time had the forethought to then reach out and keep him from tipping sideways.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, continue,” Asher added, and Nadine looked like she would have smacked him, too, if he hadn’t been out of reach. But then she also looked like she was as curious as them, so it now fell to the two in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked to Lucas, asking herself maybe the same thing he was asking himself. Had they really not noticed? They guessed it wasn’t completely ridiculous, with how the time had gotten away from them and they’d run back with only seconds to spare. Now she looked at their mothers sitting in the front, talking and laughing, and she didn’t know anymore. Had they really fooled their mothers, or had their mothers fooled them? They could have seen them and decided to play along, just waiting to spring the trap on them, right when they didn’t expect it. She looked back to Lucas, who caught on to her concerns and took a look, too, before turning a shrug to her. What was done was done, right?</p><p> </p><p>“Well?” Nadine asked.</p><p> </p><p>“We looked at the paintings,” Lucas told her. “We took our time, to really look at them,” he went on, turning back to Maya, who chimed in with a nod. “Then we saw the time and we came back.” They left out the part about the near miss with the statue.</p><p> </p><p>The bus arrived back in the school lot, and as the others started climbing out, Maya held him back, asking if he was sure his mother had no idea they’d run off.</p><p> </p><p>“I… I don’t know anymore. I didn’t think she did, but now…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe she didn’t,” Maya pondered aloud. “Maybe she didn’t, but mine figured it out and told her, maybe… I-I don’t know…” It sounded ridiculous, but she had gotten it in her head that the slightest misdeed might cost her the chance to go home for the holidays. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe we should just come clean. It’s not that bad, I mean we looked at the art, that’s what we came here to do, right? We looked at it longer than they did, probably,” she tried to reason with herself as they started out of the bus. She couldn’t appear guilty, that was a rookie move right there.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t say anything,” Lucas offered. “Not unless it looks like we should.” Maya said nothing, but he saw her head give a small nod and that was good enough for him.</p><p> </p><p>So they said nothing, and as each of them went their separate ways, off home with their respective mothers, they saw no sign that they knew anything which might have been the truth, but it was just as possible that they knew and chose to let them both stew in their own concerns as punishment.</p><p> </p><p>All this aside, what kept them from losing their mind was to think about running around the museum, looking at one painting after another, and then there really was no reason for either of them to feel out of place. Maya was still thinking about getting some paint of her own, while Lucas wondered if he might find a print of the piece that had kept her captivated for so long. He could give it to her for Christmas… He still had to bring her the shelves for her wall.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0050"><h2>50. Her Call to the Missed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was December 23<sup>rd</sup>, and to the best of her abilities she had not managed to find cheer in herself for the days to come, not since the week before, when her mother had finally told her they’d be spending the holidays in Texas. She had explained that she’d tried, really, but they just couldn’t afford the trip there and back. She pressed on this a near guarantee that they would be able to go next Christmas, but in saying this she had already confirmed Maya’s fears. If next Christmas would have taken this long to afford, then she would hardly ever get to go, would she?</p><p> </p><p>She had told Riley days ago, knowing how much she’d looked forward to this visit, too. She hated to know how sad it made her, as much as her, and so they had been calling each other over Skype every day. Seeing her face pop up on the screen of her phone – a present she’d received in the mail shortly after her arrival in Austin – it was as though she’d travelled miles and miles back to her old world.</p><p> </p><p>“Peaches!” she would burst out every time, and Maya could only smile; it was that or crying.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Honey,” she would reply, hoping it helped her dear faraway friend’s heart beat a little brighter. As much as Maya had struggled with adjusting to her new life, she knew Riley had needed to do it, too.</p><p> </p><p>Sure, she hadn’t been the one to have to move to a new city, but Maya knew how she would have felt if Riley had gone away, and she would not have wished that on anyone she liked, and on her the least of all. When they would speak, instead of texting, she could see that in her. She would be so happy, just to see her face appear, and Maya didn’t think that kind of overpowering burst of joy could come out of anything other than heavy sadness.</p><p> </p><p>She’d try and get her to tell her how she was doing, but she would always change the subject, telling her about what had been going on at school, or at home, or with Farkle, and if it wasn’t that, then she would ask Maya questions instead. Maya wanted to push further, but with the distance, and the means of their conversations, she knew it would be too easy for Riley to make some excuse and disconnect the call. The best she could do was to try and make her as happy as possible in the time when she had her on the screen.</p><p> </p><p>She thought she’d been doing better in the last couple of days. The sadness hadn’t gone away completely, no, but there was something there. Maya had tried to ask, maybe something had changed, but if it had, then she couldn’t figure it out, and Riley wasn’t saying anything. It had to be how Christmas was getting closer, and really that would make sense. Between her birthday and Christmas and the end of the year, December had always been her favorite month. She’d walk around like the whole thing was magical. If that was the case, then even now it couldn’t let her down completely. Maya looked at her now, her smiling Riley, and she wished for her an endless December…</p><p> </p><p>Her friends here in Texas had been working overtime to bring her some magic of their own, ever since they’d found out she wasn’t going to be able to go back to New York for Christmas. She wouldn’t have put it past them to somehow try and put together what money she’d need to go, but she’d already shot down the idea, didn’t want to have them turn to their parents for her, especially if it was going to be this way every time she wanted to go back there.</p><p> </p><p>At least, she had her greatest silver lining, and it was how she would still have all of them, get to go to all their houses in turn, in what they referred to as the ‘Christmas tour.’ It was the one thing she had to try and lift her disappointment over having to stay. It hadn’t really worked, not fully, and she didn’t expect it to. She would be happy when she was with them, and with her mother, of course, but then when she’d be left on her own, such as now, then all the glow they had been shining on her would just as quickly go away. She’d be back in this feeling, the one she’d thought for sure she had gotten rid of weeks ago, the one where she missed home so much that she couldn’t bear it. Hadn’t she been feeling, finally, like Texas was now her home, too?</p><p> </p><p>But now she had Riley on her screen, while her mother was out, determined to pull together some miraculous sort of a Christmas meal. She would not have put it past her mother to end up getting Hildy to help her cook it.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t want Riley to know she was tail spinning, not now, but oh she was… Couldn’t she have this one thing? After everything since September, she had made something of her new life. All she wanted in return was to be with the people she’d been forced to leave behind.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Riley asked, and she realized she’d been looking at the screen but not seeing, not hearing.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry,” she blinked, tried on a smile. “Did I tell you about our field trip?” She had, days ago.</p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0051"><h2>51. Her Call to Reassure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What are you going to do for Christmas, tell me,” Riley asked her, and Maya looked at her, so small on that screen but smiling so much bigger. She was doing the same thing as Maya would do for her, wasn’t she… trying to dip into her pool of happiness, hoping it would splash on to everything outside of it… And what other option did they have?</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” she started, counting off on her fingers, “Tomorrow we’re having breakfast with Hildy and Sara, lunch at Asher’s, dinner at Nadine’s, and day after that breakfast at Dylan’s, lunch at Zay’s, and dinner at Lucas’… So Mom and I are having Christmas dinner just me and her tonight, because according to her we’ll be in a food coma from the twenty-sixth and to the end of the year.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wow,” Riley replied. Her eyes had only gotten wider with every meal added to the roster. “That’s a lot of people,” she went on, and Maya wasn’t sure how she felt about all of them. She never wanted to talk too much about them, didn’t want her – or Farkle – to think she might have replaced them. She’d told them both that the group knew all about them, that she’d been singing their praises so much that Lucas and Zay and the others felt like they knew them; the other way around, she just didn’t know where to draw the line, so they didn’t know them.</p><p> </p><p>“They sort of worked out the schedule that way, I don’t think it’s like this every year… I don’t know. I think since mom and I are new, they all want their turn or something.”</p><p> </p><p>It would make the days fly by, running from one house to the next, and she did not mind that at all. For what had to be weeks, even a month, she’d been conjuring up images of Christmas in New York. She dreamed it and she drew it, and then she’d had to let it fade away. She didn’t know how to do it, but starting tomorrow morning it would be okay, because she wouldn’t have time to get pulled back in.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what tonight’s going to be like,” she admitted. “Me and Mom.”</p><p> </p><p>“But it’s better now, isn’t it?” Riley asked. “You said after you had the sleepover, everything you talked about…”</p><p> </p><p>“It is,” Maya quickly nodded. “It really is.” She could have focused only on that and it would have been the best Christmas ever, but there was the homesickness sticking to her at every turn instead. “Maybe it’ll be okay when tonight comes, when it’s us and dinner. We’re going to watch a movie after, I think.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had told her – in his infinite Guide status – about some activities around the area, places to see… He’d gone so far as to draw her a map. The whole thing had landed in her hands about two days after she’d learned she wouldn’t be headed to New York. She hadn’t committed to doing any of it yet, but she’d been thinking that maybe tonight, after dinner, she and her mother might check some of it out… if she felt up to it. She knew that if she didn’t do any of the things on Lucas’ map she would feel bad, even if he had told her it was all up to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you have a tree?” Riley asked, like she’d asked on each of the past few days, and each day Maya had told her they soon would.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s on its way,” she promised now. Hildy would be driving her mother to the tree lot, somewhere in the middle of helping with their dinner, by the sound of it. Riley looked thrilled to learn this, less so by finding out they had no ornaments, but it soon changed as Maya showed how she’d been making some out of paper. She’d been at it all morning to keep herself busy. She had also made some to post up around the house, like it would all manage to kick start a feeling of holiday cheer and chase away the homesickness blues. “I think it needs some of your brand of magic.”</p><p> </p><p>Riley’s response was to mime tossing that so-called magic at her screen. They both waited in momentary silence, as though they expected something to appear.</p><p> </p><p>“I think it needs time to get from here to there,” Riley shrugged. “But it’ll get there, I promise.” Maya smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“December magic,” she whispered, and Riley nodded in agreement. “Alright, I guess I’ll wait. But hey, I do have this…” she held up one of her paper ornaments, fronted by the proudest and most purple of cats. To see how happy it made Riley, she knew it would be hung as prominently as any one ornament could be.</p><p> </p><p>She had made one for each of her friends, here and back in New York. She imagined the tree as a collection of all the good things she had to be happy about. Maybe she would look at it all assembled and it would receive the touch of Riley’s distance-delayed December magic.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, now you,” Maya looked to her screen, “How’s everyone back there?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0052"><h2>52. Her Call to Catch Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If she found it difficult to mention her new friends to Riley, at least Riley did not have the same issue telling her about those she’d left behind. Knowing about all of them was as close as she was bound to get to them… for longer than she’d been expecting.</p><p> </p><p>Her parents were still good. Her father apparently found his classes boring now that she was gone, which Maya knew might have been more Riley’s opinion than anything else, but at the same time she wanted to believe she could be missed that much, especially from someone who’d come to mean so much to her. The same could be said of Riley’s mother, who had been such an impressive figure from the day a smaller Maya Hart had crawled into her home and her life. She might have been happy to hear how some of the maternal affection she’d pressed on to her had been shifting back to her own mother.</p><p> </p><p>Riley told her about Auggie, how he’d made friends with a girl in their building, and how their mother didn’t seem to care much for her, going so far as to throw her out of the apartment. Today, Riley told her about the latest Topanga-Ava faceoff, and it made Maya smile. Every so often, Riley would have her little brother near when they talked, and she could see him, see that he was growing already. He would ask her question after question about what Texas was like, and she would happily answer him.</p><p> </p><p>She had her calls with Farkle, too, and so in many parts she didn’t need Riley to fill her in. He didn’t act as miserable over her departure as Riley did, even though she knew he missed her deeply, too, just as she had found she had never felt as close to him as she did now. If he knew how much she would have liked to hug him now, she thought for sure he would fall into a sudden and unshakeable coma. He at least was happy to hear of her advancements in school, and there had been an occasion or three where she had called on him for assistance when she had been too new and boxed in to instead ask people she didn’t have to talk to through a screen. To see him so unchanged, so continually the Farkle she had left back in New York had given her more comfort than he’d realize.</p><p> </p><p>Although to say he hadn’t changed at all would have been a lie. Maybe it was that she didn’t see him every day, which made it easier for her to notice, but she could sense he was growing, too. And then there was the Smackle thing. This part had been Riley’s contribution to the evolving Farkle Minkus story.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been familiar only so far as to the existence of a girl called Isadora Smackle, a student at the very adeptly named Einstein Academy, and she was – according to him – Farkle’s arch nemesis. Only now, the way things were going, the scales had started to tip. They had been spending more time with her, both Farkle and Riley, which the girls suspected had to be something halfway between his wanting to fill a gap left by Maya’s departure, and his just wanting to get to know the girl more.</p><p> </p><p>When Riley had first told her about this, Maya had tasked her with getting her a picture of this infamous Smackle. Riley had fulfilled her mission, and Maya had decided this girl could well be the perfect match for Farkle, whether it would be as arch nemesis, or friends, or something else.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t forget to call me when your family gets there, okay? I want to say hi to them if I won’t get to see them,” Maya told Riley, who vowed she would take her everywhere and to everyone. Maya wasn’t sure how it would all line up, between the New York calls and the endless visits and meals of the next two days. But she would make it work, oh, she would. She wasn’t ready to abandon her New York Christmas completely.</p><p> </p><p>“I invited Farkle and Smackle,” Riley went on. “There’ll be a lot of people already, but… I wanted them there, too,” she added, and off the distant look in her eyes, Maya read the unspoken ‘since you won’t be.’</p><p> </p><p>“That’s good, I’ll be able to see them, too,” Maya told her with a smile, and Riley brightened again, just as the bell rang. “That’s gotta be Hildy and my Mom. I’ll call you back…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, take me with you, I want to see!” Riley begged before she could end the call, so Maya swung off her bed, phone still in hand, and went up to pull open the door, only to find it was neither her mother nor Hildy, and not even stern Sara.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi?” Maya frowned, finding a man stood on her doorstep. Between the large bag at his feet and the facial hair, he might have been some wannabe Santa, only he was neither old nor fat and jolly, and his hair was brown instead of white. He stared back at her like he wasn’t sure if he had the right place, but then he pointed at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you Maya?” he asked. She nodded, and he opened his mouth to speak again until he saw her phone in her hand. When she looked down at it, the small image of Riley had that sort of proud smile she got when she had pulled something off. The magic had landed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0053"><h2>53. Her Call to Surprises</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Still baffled and silent, Maya had been introduced via Riley down on her phone to the one she called her uncle, even though he was neither of her parents’ brother but instead their childhood friend, Shawn Hunter. For all the stories she’d heard on him over the years, she had not once laid eyes on him, leaving her to wonder if he truly existed or if he was a creation born out of Mr. Matthews’ odd little curly head. And now he was here, in Austin, standing on her front porch.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s he doing here?” Maya looked back down to the phone, throwing a finger up to the man, telling him to wait. He went just a bit wide-eyed.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, invite the man in. He’s come a long way,” Riley instructed her before shouting, “Come in, Uncle Shawn!”</p><p> </p><p>“Riley, you don’t just invite people into other people’s homes, even if the second of those met you by breaking into yours,” Maya told her, and when her visitor opened his mouth to no doubt say something like ‘you broke into her house?’ she bypassed the issue by yanking him inside and shutting the door. “You, explain,” she pointed to Riley, who was maybe now counting her lucky stars to be far, far away.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn was headed your way, so I asked if he might make a stop over with a few… things…” She paused. “Uncle Shawn, the bag!” she prompted when nothing happened. He blinked, then looked at Maya before motioning for her to hand over the phone.</p><p> </p><p>“If you wanted me to follow a script, I didn’t get one.” He looked strangely like he knew what he’d come here for while at the same time having the appearance of someone in unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. Setting the phone down nearby in such a way that Riley was still ‘with’ them, he turned back to Maya. “Alright, kid, here’s the deal. In this bag, you’ve got Christmas presents from some people back in New York…” (Riley raised her hand with a grin.) “I’m supposed to tell you not to open them until the morning of the 25<sup>th</sup>, but hey, who’s here to stop you?” he shrugged, and Maya chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, no, yes, you are!” Riley protested from the phone. “Maya, you have to wait, swear it!”</p><p> </p><p>“Also, some birthday presents,” Shawn only continued, “And those you should probably do as she says, but it’s on you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Unbelievable,” Riley frowned, but Maya went and picked up the phone, beaming.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise, I’ll wait, for all of them,” she told her friend. After all this time, Riley’s December Magic had come through for her… It was starting to feel like Christmas. “Hang on a minute,” she told Shawn, running toward her room with the phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, I’ll just wait here,” she heard him say like he’d just thrown his hands up in the air. Once alone with the phone, she looked back to Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“I know you’re good, but you’re going to have to explain this one to me. I thought you guys didn’t talk.” Riley confirmed that they didn’t… not until a few weeks ago.</p><p> </p><p>Riley told her how, after she’d been having a particularly rough time at the prospect of not having Maya there for her birthday – she remembered – her father had taken matters into his own hands, and to deal with <em>her</em> best friend blues, he had called in his own, thinking he would be just what Riley needed at a time like this, especially with how he had been comparing them for so long.</p><p> </p><p>As Maya had said, they didn’t really talk, and it had been complicated at first. But then with time they had kept talking, after he’d returned home, and with the time that had passed, with each conversation, he had helped her to feel better. Now Maya knew what had changed for her lately.</p><p> </p><p>When Riley had called her Uncle Shawn the week before, telling him how Maya would be staying in Texas over the holidays, that was when this visit had been arranged. He would be passing through there over Christmas, he’d told her, and he had offered to bring her presents from New York.</p><p> </p><p>“I see…” Maya nodded. “I’ll call you back tomorrow, thanks for the presents, I won’t open them yet, bye!”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait!” Riley cried out, but the call had been ended, phone left on her bed amid the multitude of paper ornaments. Maya walked out of her room, finding her visitor sat on the couch like one waiting for their turn to see the doctor.</p><p> </p><p>“You, hey,” she called, stopping where she stood. He looked up. “Did you really have to come to Texas?” She had to hand it to him, he told the truth.</p><p> </p><p>“It meant a lot to her that you got these, so it was the easiest way to make it happen for you two. Are you going to tell her?” She stared. “No, of course you won’t.” He stretched his foot out to tap the footrest across from him. “Well come on, sit, let’s talk. I’ve been hearing a lot about you lately, and I did come all this way.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0054"><h2>54. Her Call to Connect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Much as he’d prompted her to sit <em>and</em> talk, once she had done the first part, the second took some time more to get moving. Maya had just sat there, looking at the man she had shaped into a myth. All the stories she’d heard, and somehow she had trouble reconciling the picture with the words. This was Shawn Hunter? This was the one who was to Mr. Matthews as she was to Riley? She didn’t see it…</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re just going to sit there and look at me?” he asked, sounding increasingly uncomfortable.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah? And what if I do?” she asked, keeping his gaze. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself now that he’d done what he’d come to do. “What did Riley tell you about me?”</p><p> </p><p>“She said you were her best friend in the world,” he responded easily here. “She said no one outside of her family mattered more to her than you did, and sometimes even more than them,” he added, and she smiled. “You broke into her home?” he turned the questions on her. “When did that happen… <em>why</em> did that happen?” She stared a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“What else did she tell you about me?” she slowly asked. He was a stranger, even if she felt oddly at ease around him, so she had to know where they stood. “What did she say about my family?” He had a knowing look.</p><p> </p><p>“She told me about your dad, how he left? Right around the time you started breaking into people’s homes?” he suggested, and she fixed him with a look rather than looking away. “Okay, so maybe I’m starting to see it,” he went on, almost startled. “So, what did she tell you about <em>me</em>?” Maya shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“She said you were friends with her parents since forever. Mostly Mr. Matthews told me things, said I reminded him of you. So, why’s that exactly?”</p><p> </p><p>“First off, it’s Cory. Mr. Matthews is his father, although right now I’m really seeing the family resemblance. And the other thing, well your dad left <em>you</em>, my mom left <em>me</em>,” he started off. Hearing him state it like that, her father and her, she’d just flinched. No one said it in those words, for fear of hurting her, except her, in her thoughts. And she would hear her mother’s voice in her head, the night of the sleepover, and before she knew it, she was talking.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought for years my mom was the one who chased him away, she…” She paused, looking back at him. “But I don’t know anymore. It’s made things complicated, but now they’re almost… good. I don’t want to bring it up again and know the truth, because if it’s not… If it’s the same, I… I don’t want to know.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I don’t know your mom, but from what I’ve heard, and how she brought you here… I also heard Cory and Topanga helped you guys get this house, and that tells me all I need to know right now. You guys have a shot. Me, I had my dad, when he was there, which was… not all the time,” he shook his head, his mind seeming to go off somewhere else. “It’s not the kind of life I’d want my kid going through,” he went on. When he turned back to look at her, neither of them could think of a word to speak. After a beat, they both resettled in their seats. She smiled. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so maybe I’m starting to see it,” she told him, picking up on his earlier statement, and it wrestled a quiet laugh out of him. “How come Riley said you guys didn’t talk much, what’s that about?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, you don’t let go, do you?” he sat back.</p><p> </p><p>“I look out for her, it’s what I do,” she shrugged. “You were the same with her dad, weren’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“You got me there,” he admitted. “She really is so much like him, you have no idea, like the both of them, actually, which can get just… really freaky. The last couple of weeks, after I ended up talking to her for a while, she got it right out of me, how I’d been away all this time. They had their life, I had mine, and they were just nothing alike. Sometimes things get so hard to look at, you just want to look anywhere else but there. But I’m looking now, alright? How do you think I ended up here?”</p><p> </p><p>Maya thought about it, about what she would have done, if she’d had the means to go back to New York, to be with Riley and Farkle and all of them for the holidays. She would have gone, no questions asked. And here was this guy, who’d come from New York to Texas to bring her presents because Riley missed her. After being a near mythical figure in her head all this time, he was achieving something kind of impressive in her book. He was living up to his image. That could be a frightening concept to someone like her though. Myths were a lot like dreams, like hope, and they had a way of floating off like so much smoke. It left her wanting to get at ease, but at the same time told her to remain on the side of apprehension.</p><p> </p><p>“You came to make Riley feel better,” she nodded slowly. “You started talking with her, because she needed it. She won’t tell me how bad it really is… I can’t tell her things either, sometimes. I need you to tell me, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0055"><h2>55. Her Call to the Home Sick</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He didn’t want to get into it. He said it wasn’t his place, at first, before clarifying how he didn’t think it would help her, that she would still be here, and Riley would still be in New York. She didn’t care. She needed to know whether Riley was alright or not.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, back in New York, no matter how bad things got, I had Riley. And when things got as bad as they’d been since… well, since my father left… I couldn’t do that anymore, because having to leave there meant leaving her, too. It felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore, after it took me so long to find who that person was, and I had to be that way in a place I didn’t know, with no one around me but my mom. It was the worst kind of feeling, and now it’s been over three months and I still kind of feel it. Riley, she’s still out there, and I know her, like you know her dad, and I know something’s not right with her either, but <em>I can’t get to her</em>. If the two of us are supposed to be so much like you and her dad, put yourself in our shoes for a second, would it be enough for you if someone told you they ‘didn’t think it would help’ after they’d gone to all this trouble? Really?” He kept on staring for a while after she’d stopped talking. She wasn’t going to blink; he was going to talk.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t see it all myself, alright?” he started. “When Cory asked me to come by, all he said was… well, it sounded a lot like what you said at the end there. We were like you and her, and he’s so much like her, he thought what she needed was someone like you, and I was the closest thing he had. He thought she might be able to talk to me.”</p><p> </p><p>It would have been like Mr. Matthews to do this, she guessed; Riley had done something not unlike that, hadn’t she?</p><p> </p><p>“If you ask me, I think you guys just need to be honest with each other. Say it like it is, don’t be scared about how it’s going to sound. You, you’ve made new friends here, I’m guessing?” She nodded. “How much does she know about them?” She didn’t speak, but her eyes said ‘not much.’ “Why, because they’re more important to you than she is?” he asked, and she frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“No way,” she vowed.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, so what’s so bad about her knowing that you’re happy? Do you think she won’t want that for you, that she’d rather you stayed alone because she can’t be the one here with you?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, probably not,” she sighed. “But I don’t know if <em>she’s</em> okay, so if I am, then I don’t want to rub it in her face. I’d still want to be back there more than anywhere,” she told him, though in her head she saw faces that made her add a silent ‘mostly.’ Suddenly she had discovered within herself the thinnest of roots, clawing for purchase at the Texan ground, and getting stronger every day.</p><p> </p><p>“She misses you,” Shawn told her, as though she didn’t already know. “It’s not just an emotion, it’s a part of you that’s gone, when someone goes away, and maybe it leaves a hole, and you try and fill it, or you try not to see that it’s there.”</p><p> </p><p>“And Riley?” Maya asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Somewhere down the middle?” he estimated. It was hard for him to put it into words, she could see. He’d stayed away so long that he didn’t know Riley enough to say how she’d been before, compared to how she was now. “What was she like before you? What’s she like without you?” In her head she saw a little girl sitting alone, singing to herself. She saw a girl who’d step back sooner than step forward, until <em>she’d</em> be there, to take her hand, to urge her onward. So, was that what she was doing now, without her? Standing still, stepping back…</p><p> </p><p>“If I try and get her to be honest with me about it, she changes the subject, I can’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, so be honest with her first,” he shrugged like it was the simplest solution. Maybe it was.</p><p> </p><p>“If I have some things for her will you take them back to her?” she asked, and he nodded. “Okay,” she stood. She didn’t know what she would give him to give her just yet, but she could think of something. She and her mother were supposed to go shopping for Riley and Farkle’s presents, that was when her mother had told her they’d be staying in Texas for Christmas, so she hadn’t…</p><p> </p><p>Just then, there was a rattling at the door and Maya turned to see the top of her mother’s head and a gathering of green branches, at the window in the door. She turned to Shawn just as it opened and in came her mother, pulling at the Christmas tree.</p><p> </p><p>“Hildy had to take Sara to the ER, she’s fine, but she let me have her mother’s car to get all this home, I… oh, thanks,” she said as Shawn moved to help her get the tree inside. Then she stopped, possibly noting the stranger standing in her house, alone with her daughter. “And who are you exactly?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0056"><h2>56. Her Call to the New</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mom, that’s Riley’s Uncle Shawn,” Maya quickly spoke before her mother could get any wrong ideas in her head. “Shawn Hunter, Katy Hart,” she introduced. “He was going to be passing through Texas,” she explained, turning back to look at Shawn, “So he brought my Christmas presents.” She pointed to the bag sitting on the ground by the couch.</p><p> </p><p>“And birthday, too,” Shawn added, to which Maya nodded. “Can I help you with that?” he indicated the tree. Her mother still looked just a bit unsure, but Maya gave her a nod, and after a moment she turned back to their guest.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure… alright,” she told him, still sounding halfway suspicious. Maya expected her to ask to see his ID at any moment. Instead, they worked to set the tree in its base – borrowed from Hildy again – and unbind it to let its branches spread out. It wasn’t the most giant of trees, but it definitely felt like the tallest one they’d ever had.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been dispatched to bring in the bags from the car while all this was happening, putting away the prepared and unprepared items away and returning to find her mother and Shawn arguing, or maybe bickering would be the appropriate term. She couldn’t say if they realized she was standing there.</p><p> </p><p>From what she was getting, it had started off somewhere at string lights, which her mother had not gotten, and which Shawn had now offered to go and get for them, which her mother had insisted would not be necessary. That had been what she’d overheard as she passed by to bring in the bags from the car. Now, she was almost certain Shawn had offered to finance the occasional trip back to New York for Maya, and her mother, seeing it as some pity handout from a stranger, was letting him know as much.</p><p> </p><p>Didn’t she think Maya deserved to see her friends after being taken away from them, he would ask. Of course, she did, but when she did it would be through her, her mother would reply. But she couldn’t afford it, and he was happy to do it, he would counter. But they didn’t know him, and she wasn’t going to owe a stranger… But he wasn’t looking to be paid back…</p><p> </p><p>“Guys!” Maya called over them, and they stopped and turned to her. “Shawn, it means a lot that you offered to do this for me, but I think my mom’s right,” she told him. She hated to do it, but she could see the wound it would crack over her mother’s pride, and she didn’t want that for her. “And Mom, you could let him get the lights instead,” she added with a small shrug. Her mother and Shawn looked back to the other, and there the agreement was struck. Shawn headed out to track down some lights, leaving her alone with her mother, who took this moment to make a call to Riley’s parents and confirm who Shawn was and why he’d come.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had gone back to her room with a shake of the head, resuming her ornament building. Her phone was flashing, and she discovered some twenty messages and three failed attempts at new calls from Riley, who wanted to know what was happening with Shawn and to make sure she hadn’t opened her presents yet. She wanted to call her back now, but she knew that, when she did, she would want them to talk openly, like Shawn had told her to do, and this was not the time. Instead, she focused on the paper ornaments. When Shawn would return with the lights, she wanted to be ready.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. Less than an hour ago she’d been sitting in her room, doing exactly what she was doing now, except it felt completely different. She was happy, excited even, and inspired. She wanted Christmas, and she was anxious to see her friends tomorrow, now more than ever. Her grief over her lost New York Christmas was lifting; she was ready to have her first Texas Christmas.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you do all those?” She startled, kicking up a flurry of ornaments that tumbled to the ground. Looking up, she found Shawn had returned and now stood just outside her room, looking in at the drawings on her walls. They had been reapplied, and she never wanted to take them down again.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she pulled ornaments from her lap before she could get up to collect those on the floor. “I did those first,” she pointed to one corner, “When we left New York. My Mom got me… a sketchbook, and pencils, and I kept going. Then she got me the colors. You take pictures, right?” He nodded, then pointed to one cluster of images.</p><p> </p><p>“Looks like you made your own.” She looked, seeing he pointed to some of her drawings from the road.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to try painting next,” Maya told him, thinking of that day in the museum, with Lucas. She’d felt more inspired than ever before, and she hadn’t forgotten how intrigued she’d been. She wanted to find the answers, and she would.</p><p> </p><p>“Until you do, want to come and hang some lights?” he asked, hooking his thumb to indicate the tree back in the living room. “I kind of want to see those presents under the tree now, before I get going.” She shook her head. “You don’t want to decorate the tree?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I do. But you’re not going anywhere. I mean, you can’t go back to New York yet, you told Riley you were ‘on your way to Texas,’ and you just got here,” she explained, a look of mock innocence on her face.  “Mom, he’s staying for dinner!” she shouted. “Come here, help me get these back to the tree,” she instructed her baffled guest at normal volume.</p><p> </p><p>“Do I have any say in this?” Shawn protested, to which she shook her head. “Right, didn’t think so.”</p><p> </p><p>Together they had strung the multicolored lights around the tree at a near dizzying pace. Then it had been time to deploy the ornaments. As promised, Riley’s purple cat had been hung front and center. It was joined by many more, for Farkle, for Cory and Topanga, for Auggie, for Lucas, and Zay, for Nadine, and Asher and Dylan. She hung one for her mother, for Hildy and little Sara… She’d have to make one for Shawn, she decided.</p><p> </p><p>At the top went the most intricate of her ornaments, a great star that glimmered and sparkled thanks to the reflections from the lights. When it was all done, she stood back, looking up at the finished product. She turned back to Shawn, to her mother; she had that face she’d get when she’d try so hard not to cry, while he held up a finger before moving to take the large bag he’d first come to the door holding. He opened it, stacking the packages of varied sizes and colors under the tree. She’d sort out which of these were to wait until her birthday. For now, everything was beautiful, and she knew she would want to draw it later.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what’s for dinner?” Shawn asked. Maya didn’t know how this night would go, but she felt oddly confident. She did have Riley’s magic on her side.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn stayed through dinner, though he had to bow out of sitting to a movie. Maya thanked him again, feeling more and more the words would not be enough. He thanked her, too, and her mother, and promised to stop by again, if he should find himself ‘passing through Texas.’</p><p> </p><p>The morning of the 25<sup>th</sup>, as promised, Maya would open the presents carried from New York. Strangest of all was one large package she could swear had not been there the night before. Inside, she found paints and brushes.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0057"><h2>57. His Introduction to Secrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was halfway through January before Lucas came to remember he still had the shelves he’d promised to give to Maya, there in the back of his closet, just as they’d been since they’d been removed from his walls two years ago. He decided in that moment that he couldn’t keep forgetting or putting it off. It was Saturday and, if she wasn’t busy, he would go and bring them to her and offer to put them up for her, like he’d seen it done.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had answered his message and told him she was indeed free that day and he could come over whenever. That was all he needed to hear. The shelves and their components were extracted from his closet, given a dusting. Lucas asked his father to borrow the tools he would need, which led his father to offer both a ride to Maya’s house and assistance in hanging the shelves. Lucas only took him up on the first; he could deal with the second, and Maya would be able to help just as well.</p><p> </p><p>He was dropped off soon after and greeted at the door by Maya’s mother, who looked like she’d had no idea why he was lugging shelves and tools. Now Lucas wasn’t sure if he’d even told Maya why he was coming, or if he’d just asked if he could come by. When she came from her room and saw what he’d brought, now he was sure: she’d had no idea.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had quickly caught her mother up on the offer he’d made, now several weeks ago. He apologized for it taking so long. She promised it was fine, while her mother looked delighted at this gift which he’d brought for Maya. She offered to assist them, and again Lucas had graciously declined. After her mother left them, he turned to her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, I thought I’d said in the text…”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s fine, it is,” she told him, but the tone in her voice didn’t put out the impression like she really meant it.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” he asked. “I can come another time, or if you don’t want them anymore, I…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, I do, I…” she quickly told him, and here he heard sincerity in the statement. But then she stopped, let out a sigh, and the questions were back in her eyes. They always looked so out of place in her, like the girl he’d come to know was much too self-assured to be so conflicted, but at the same time… she wasn’t. At the same time, she was both.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, it’s okay,” he told her. “Just tell me what you want me to do, really.” She looked at him, at the load of objects sat at his feet. After a moment, she came up and lifted his father’s toolbox, both hands on, and started back toward her room.</p><p> </p><p>Taking that as his answer, he picked up the shelves and followed her. He realized he hadn’t set foot in that room since the day he’d originally offered her the shelves. He’d been at the house several times, they all had, but never in there. He hadn’t thought too much about it, but then she stopped there at the door, put the box down with a thud, turned and stopped him.</p><p> </p><p>“Just give me a few minutes, I need to clean in there,” she told him. “There’s a short ladder down in the basement, you could go get it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, okay,” he told her, setting down the load before moving to the basement door. The trip down and back up again was both short and familiar now, with how often the six friends had found their way down there. When he arrived at the door to Maya’s room, he found it shut. He could hear noise from inside, movement. He waited a while, imagining she was still not done, and he should wait. When nearly ten minutes had gone by and he couldn’t hear anything anymore – and hadn’t for maybe three of those minutes – he gave the door a tentative knock. “Maya? I have the ladder.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, okay, thanks,” he heard her from inside. “Just give me another minute… maybe two.” She sounded distracted, lost in thought. He couldn’t help but to wonder what she was doing in there. She sounded like she was just standing there, on the other side of the door. He looked down and he could see the shadow of her feet.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, what’s the problem?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” her voice sounded again, “The fact that there is a problem, that’s… That’s kind of it. I didn’t think there would be, but now hey, here we are.” She paused. “Have you ever had something, like… a security blanket? Not an actual blanket, just something that you kept close, and you didn’t really share it, because… I don’t know… because you didn’t think they’d get why it was so important to you?”</p><p> </p><p>The shadows were swaying, like she’d turned to face the door. He heard the knob turn, and he took a step back, having been so near the door. When it opened, only an inch at first and then all the way, he blinked back the rise of sunlight from the window, and there stood Maya, looking back at him expectantly. When he finally saw past her, his gaze was immediately drawn to the walls.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0058"><h2>58. His Introduction to Creation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With all the images there for his eyes to take in, for a moment the images he saw were in his mind’s eye. He recalled the morning they’d come for her and found her hunched over what they’d thought to be a notebook. He saw little figures in the margins of her notes when they’d all be doing their homework together. And he saw her face, that day at the museum, the bright fascination. Now his own two eyes could take in his surroundings. He took a brief look back to her before walking into the room.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know where to start, there were so many of them, but he began to pick up some sort of sequence, and when he looked to the images at the farthest left he found New York, and there was Christmas at the farthest right, next to the museum print he’d given her. It was a timeline, and it twisted around her room, eating at empty spaces. <em>A safety blanket.</em></p><p> </p><p>There were her friends, the ones from New York she spoke so often about, and other people he didn’t know. There were places, what he guessed was her old home, old school… another bay window, a diner… There were landscapes, her journey here, if he had to guess, ending on a sign that marked her arrival in Texas. The further along he went, he found familiar sites, here in Austin. The park, and the theater with its ceiling, Chubbie’s, their school…</p><p> </p><p>And there they all were, Zay, Nadine, Asher, Dylan, him and her. They were everywhere. The way she drew them, they felt to him like creatures larger than life. She had woven them deep into this timeline of hers and shown in doing so just how important they were to her.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas turned back to her, finding she stood like someone ready to make a run for it. What he didn’t understand was why. He looked at all this and he was humbled, that he should be held up at such a standard, especially with how he had been coming to see himself, just four short months ago. In Maya’s art, he could see she had never seen him as anything but this, never as the person he’d wanted so much to get away from. She only saw the one underneath it, and it left him feeling a surge of emotion that could have led to tears if she hadn’t spoken.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to take them down,” she revealed. “I did, when you all came, the sleepover. But I swore I wasn’t going to do it again.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” he nodded. “I mean you shouldn’t take them down, really, it’s… Maya, why would you even?” he asked, turning back to her.</p><p> </p><p>“I… I don’t know,” she spoke, wearing the discomfort of her awkwardness in her voice. He couldn’t say if she said the truth or if she either couldn’t or wouldn’t. As much as she’d started to open up over time, this felt much more like the Maya he had first known, the one she had told him was so lost upon coming here that she didn’t know who she was anymore. Had letting him in here pushed her back into that place?</p><p> </p><p>“I had no idea you could draw this way,” he told her, trying to think of the best way to encourage her back into the open without it coming off like he was just trying to make her feel better. She had to know he meant every word. “How long have you been…”</p><p> </p><p>“Just since before we left from New York, I guess,” she answered. He could barely read her now, like she’d pulled up a shield before herself. He turned back to the walls, lined with images.</p><p> </p><p>“I think this one’s my favorite,” he told her, pointing to one in a corner of the room. Maya had drawn the six of them out in her yard, the afternoon of the sleepover. They had a look about them like they were so happy to be where they were, with who they were… her most of all, laid out on the grass. “You made everyone like they are. I think if someone looked at it who didn’t know us, they would after they saw it,” he told her, turning with a confident smile. He couldn’t say that the shield had gone, but it felt thinner, enough to let him see her. “I’m glad I got to see these, thank you for showing them to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” she replied. Silence started to cling.</p><p> </p><p>“The shelves?” he asked, scanning the walls. Had he known about all this, he might not have brought them; he didn’t want to rob her of any space for her art. Maya looked around, too, and finally she pointed to the space between the window and another corner of her room, where no sheet presently hung, making him think maybe she had remembered his offer and kept it bare in wait.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I help?” she asked, and he nodded. Of course, she could. He only wanted them to get to a point where the sudden awkwardness that had taken her over was gone and she would be herself again. The one who stopped being a stranger a long time ago, who called him Huckleberry and was as much a part of his friends whether she’d been one of them for months or for years. The ladder was set, tools and shelves carried over, and they were ready to start.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0059"><h2>59. His Introduction to Nerves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t so hard once they started. There were four shelves, and once the first had been put up, the others were easier, and they came to alternate, so that after he’d done the first, she’d come up to do the second, he the third and she the fourth. Both times she climbed on to the ladder, it was stronger than him, he would stand very precisely so that if at any time she looked unsteady and about to fall, he would be primed to catch her. It never happened, but she was so small up there and he would watch with so much concern.</p><p> </p><p>The advantage of having tag teamed the task seemed to be that putting up her two shelves had gotten Maya to unwind. She was more or less her talkative self by the time she came off the ladder after setting the last shelf in place by taking a dive and landing with a bounce on to her bed. She sat up, laughing, and she looked at the end result, seeming satisfied.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to need to keep that thing around to reach those top ones,” she noted, pointing up.</p><p> </p><p>It was deep into lunch time by now and they were both starving. Maya’s mother had gone out for groceries, leaving them to make sandwiches they brought to the table. Sitting next to her, Lucas hesitated. He wanted to ask about her art again, but he didn’t want to make her grow awkward all over again, right when she’d come back to normal. So, he benched the subject for now, instead telling her how Zay was working up the courage to ask Vanessa out to the movies. He might have kept it quiet, but he knew they had nothing to worry about. Maya suggested they made sure he got on with it as far ahead of Valentine’s Day as possible, for fear of the spectacle Zay might otherwise attempt.</p><p> </p><p>With lunch over, he knew his reasons for being here – especially since he still had unfinished chores at home which he’d promised his father he’d deal with before dinner – were getting away from him. They returned to Maya’s room, where he had left his father’s tools, and he knew if he was going to bring it up now, he had to get on with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I just wanted to say again, I’m really glad I got to see your art,” he told her. “I think you’re a great artist, and now that I know this, it reminds me of the museum, and I sort of get why you loved it so much out there. You see it different than I do, you see it better.”</p><p> </p><p>He had watched her tense up at first, when he’d brought the subject up again, but she stood and listened nonetheless, and to his relief she didn’t look ready to close in again. She looked at him with intent, and even though he couldn’t see into her thoughts, what he saw looked a lot like joy, no matter how guarded her smile was.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she finally said. “Really, for all of it, for the shelves, and…” she motioned toward him and he nodded in understanding. She paused. “It’s harder to let people see sometimes… a lot of the time. It was already like that before, in New York, but now here it’s worse, like everything is so… fragile… and I’ve got hammers for hands.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s… that sounds complicated,” he spoke slowly, and of all things it made her laugh, just a little.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve wanted to show all of you, or I think I did… Other times I don’t. I want to think it’s no big deal, except it is, at least to me, and then I get stuck and I don’t know what to do about it.” She stopped for a moment and he could see, just coming up, a small bubble of courage. She went and crouched next to her bed, reaching underneath to pull out what he saw was a large canvas over a wooden frame. She rested it flat on her bed and he blinked. “It’s not finished.”</p><p> </p><p>It was a painting, in progress, showing what he already recognized as Maya’s little house.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a surprise, for my mom. Her birthday’s still not for a while, but I wanted to make sure it’d be ready in time. I think we could hang it up somewhere, maybe,” she explained, a flare up of that self-doubt settling in a shrug of her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll love it,” he decided confidently. She looked back down at it, as though telling herself the same thing, before picking it up and returning it to its hiding space.</p><p> </p><p>He called his father to come and pick him up as they’d agreed, and as he waited, he and Maya went and sat in front of the house. He still had an urge in him to ask more questions, but for now he kept them in. She’d already volunteered more information than he had expected her to. When his father’s car pulled up, he turned to Maya, telling her he’d see her on Monday morning at school and she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want me to talk to Zay about you-know-who?” she called after him, and he smirked, giving her a nod: go for it.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0060"><h2>60. His Introduction to Curiosity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Any one of his old friends would never have let him live it down for saying it this way, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Maya since he’d left her house. All through the ride home, the rest of this chores, dinner with his parents, all through the evening… It was a distracted sort of thinking, as he kept on replaying the events of that morning. But as the evening drew on, he came to stop and really think about what – and who – was on his mind.</p><p> </p><p>He could still see it all in his head, all those papers on her walls, those drawings. It wasn’t as though he was some kind of art expert, but that didn’t matter here. If anything, it made things better. He didn’t need some degree to tell him he thought rightly that Maya’s art was wonderful. In all the days and weeks where he’d gotten to know his new friend, he didn’t think he could have said he really knew her until this one day. He’d been introduced to the artist in her heart.</p><p> </p><p>And now that he knew this about her and, even further, knew that there was this hang up in the way… From the day they’d met, their friendship had been built on this ability and drive to help one another. He had been her guide, and she had guarded him through that field trip, and now there was this, there was Maya, and her art, and the wall she’d built around it all, and he felt entirely compelled to act, in some shape or form. He wasn’t about to unveil her drawings to the world, not when she’d had so much trouble even showing it all to him, but if she could just get to a place where she was confident to share them it would be something, right? He couldn’t let it go, he wouldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>All this was making him wish he’d known her before all the changes in her life, the move from New York… He knew she had been different, she said so herself, and it wasn’t about trading one for the other, but he thought maybe it would be easier to understand why she was like this about her art, even if she’d only started drawing when she’d left New York. There was something he could feel existed, just beneath the surface, behind her eyes, and it felt… familiar, maybe? Like there was a part of them that was the same.</p><p> </p><p>Their lives were not the same, not even close, and on that front he knew he could never really understand what it had been like for her, and what it had meant for her to be taken away from all of it, all she’d known. All he could know was what he saw now, the result of that rupture. She had lost herself, and she couldn’t get it all back. That didn’t have to mean that what she had here couldn’t be great, because he sure thought that it was, that <em>she</em> was. Even then, there was isolation; she was trying to protect herself, and he could appreciate that. He also couldn’t help but recall that moment at the museum, with him concerned that he might lose her friendship if their mothers talked. Had she forgotten what she’d told him, or did she think it wouldn’t apply the other way around? Did she think that he, or any one of their group, would ever respond to her at with anything but support?</p><p> </p><p>It just carried on in her, he was starting to see, this little thing that seemed to pull her back if things ever got too good, or too easy. But that wasn’t going to stop any of them, was it? They’d keep showing her, keep reminding her.</p><p> </p><p>He thought about those walls again, and the blank spaces, not the expanses where there were no sheets of paper, but the small ones, from within her timeline, the ones that looked just big enough, for sheets that just weren’t there but maybe had been there, until he showed up and needed to enter her room. Had she removed them already, or had she removed these now, for specific reasons? If they were on the walls of her home, they couldn’t be so offensive. So, what were they, and why couldn’t he be allowed to see them? Why those among so many others?</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know if he would be able to ask her about those missing drawings, but he did know he needed to bring up the rest, the others getting to see what she hid on her walls. Sooner or later she’d have no choice, wouldn’t she? They were all still kind of new around her, so they didn’t just go into her room without prompt whenever they were at her house, but by now the rest of them just went into one or another’s rooms if they needed to, and they didn’t even ask. Sooner or later, they’d see it all.</p><p> </p><p>The longer she held on to it, wouldn’t it make their visits stressful for her? Always keeping that a secret, right there… He knew how much it meant to her; he’d seen it. But he also knew she might need the slightest nudge, to see she had nothing to worry about. That was all he could give her, nothing more.</p><p> </p><p>He went to sleep that night, thinking about the museum again. He thought of running around those rooms, and hiding from the class, their mothers… He thought of her, leading him off by the arm, and once by the hand… He thought of the look of sheer wonder and fascination in her eyes, and he thought… They needed to go to more museums.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0061"><h2>61. His Introduction to Uncertainty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Monday morning, he left home early to catch the bus to school. He knew Maya would already be out there, as she had been on any one of the mornings when he himself had needed to arrive early. He figured this would be the perfect opportunity for him to bring up what he had been meaning to tell her since his Saturday evening pondering session. The others wouldn’t have arrived yet and they could talk in private.</p><p> </p><p>Only when he arrived in front of their school, he found the steps empty. Maya was nowhere to be found. Maybe she had changed her routine, or she was just running late. Either way, he sat and waited, scanning the street for any sign of her. But then Zay arrived, and so did Asher and Dylan, and even Nadine – she wasn’t so late anymore, now that her father’s work hours had changed. Still, there was no sign of her, until they’d been on the verge of heading into the building.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, what’s she doing?” Zay said, pointing, and they all turned to find Maya walking up the sidewalk, side by side with Vanessa. The two of them looked as though they’d been talking all along their walk, for however long it had been going on. They came up toward the steps, where they waved at each other before Vanessa went one way to join her waiting friends (though she also snuck a glance that seemed squared on Zay before doing so) and Maya went the other to join her own, who looked confused, none more than Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you all standing out here for?” she asked. “You don’t want to be late for class, do you?” She sounded so amused at this, and they could do nothing else but follow her.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you say to her?” Zay asked quickly.</p><p> </p><p>“We were just talking, after I happened to run into her. I asked about how her weekend had been, how she was doing with school, that’s all.” Even with this, Zay was no less confused. “I came to the conclusion that she is having a good week, that there is no drama happening, and no prospects roaming about, so should a certain someone make his move, he could find her more than prepared to say yes… Now, Certain Someone, are you going to do it on your own or…”</p><p> </p><p>“Excuse me,” Zay cut her off, dashing back down the way they’d come, under the watchful eye of his laughing friends.</p><p> </p><p>“Hope he doesn’t fall on his face,” Nadine smirked. They were all waiting for Zay to move forward, and they wanted him to succeed about as much as <em>he</em> worried that he would indeed faceplant.</p><p> </p><p>When he joined them in class a few minutes later, they could not say for certain how the attempt had gone, until he lowered himself in his seat… and he smiled. The sound of five people trying to keep quiet at once, they learned, was not so quiet. Class started, and by the time they actually got to hear the story of how Vanessa had agreed to go out with him it was lunch time. It also meant that Lucas lost yet one more chance to talk to Maya about Saturday.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t until the day was done that he eventually trailed after her, toward her own bus stop, saying he needed to talk to her about something. He didn’t need to specify what the topic was; her face said it plainly, she already knew. She wasn’t being evasive though, so he forged on.</p><p> </p><p>“We all know things about each other that nobody else knows. It’s nothing bad, but sometimes it’s just not something we feel like talking about with most people. But with the rest of our group, we know it’s fine. We know if we don’t want anyone else knowing, no one else will. That includes you now, too, you know that, right?” She looked at him and nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she promised. “Dylan told me about his mother so long ago, it took a while before I realized the kids here think his stepmom’s his birth mother.” Lucas bowed his head, knowing how his friend didn’t correct people because after everything his family had gone through, he considered his stepmother like his one and proper mother. He had been surprised to know he had told Maya so soon, until he found out about <em>her</em> father. Although knowing Dylan’s ways, it might also have been that in so little time he had already bestowed his trust upon the newcomer.</p><p> </p><p>“If you show them your art, and you tell them it’s just between the six of us, then that’s what it’s going to be. And they’ll love it. Besides, do you want to have to hide whenever we come to your house?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t,” she admitted. “I’ve been thinking about it since you left on Saturday.” This second admission made him chuckle, quickly explaining he had been doing the same and adding that he’d meant to talk to her that morning. “I just can’t seem to… make up my mind about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I don’t want to make it for you either,” he told her as they reached the bus stop. “I’ve said my part. The rest is up to you. If you want to keep it as is, I’ll back you up.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0062"><h2>62. His Introduction to Choice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The week sped by but at the same time could feel like an eternity. Lucas had made a promise. Tuesday went by, and then Wednesday, and Thursday, and at no time did Maya show any sign that she had decided what to do about this thing with her drawings. Lucas was the only one aware that this was the case, of course, but he gave no sign of it, just as he'd told her he would.</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime, they did have the entertainment that was Zay, as he was growing nearer to his date with Vanessa on the upcoming Saturday, nearer and more neurotic. He changed his mind every morning, it seemed, about where he intended to take her and what they would do. By Thursday, Nadine, Maya, and Asher all looked aggravated the moment he opened his mouth to speak with that look in his eyes they now associated with 'date brain.'</p><p> </p><p>On Friday morning though, he arrived at school to find he was the last one there, and the first thing he heard was that Maya had invited them all over to her house after school that day. Nadine had already declared it was high time for them to have another shoot off to see if they might dethrone Dylan, who'd won the last match. Lucas caught Maya's eye, and the even smile she passed him said it all. She'd made her choice. Whether that choice was as he figured or whether she had actually decided on the second option, he wouldn't know for sure until he got to talk to her alone, which happened only at lunch, after the others had all gone off elsewhere, leaving them at the table where they'd always eat.</p><p> </p><p>"So… you're going to show them?" he asked, once the others had made it out of earshot. "Or are you…"</p><p> </p><p>"No, you were right, I need to show that I trust them. I mean, I do. I should have just shown them when you all came for the sleepover instead of taking them down. Now that I think about it, it just seems silly that I did that. I'll let them see, and… if they say anything, well…" She didn't put it to words, but by the look in her eyes, he guessed any naysayers in their little group would not get to her. Even so, after a moment her face softened again. She was still nervous, no matter how well she could mask it.</p><p> </p><p>"If they say anything," he repeated with a nod, and when she looked back at him, she found he intended to keep his promise. He would back her up, even in chastising their friends if they said anything bad about her art. She smirked and shook her head, and he could almost hear her calling him Huckleberry in her head. If that was how she saw him, he didn't see anything so bad about it at all.</p><p> </p><p>As they went off to class, she told him how her mother would be staying late at the theater that day, which was how the decision had come to her. It was Friday, they had the house to themselves, so they could have their shoot off match (in a proper hoop, which had been a Christmas gift from Dylan and Asher as one), maybe watch a movie, have dinner (courtesy of Asher's uncle's place), and at some point they would take a trip to her room so she could show them the drawings on her walls. Lucas wondered if those missing ones would be returned to their spaces.</p><p> </p><p>"I'll tell them how I took them down before. At first, I wanted to keep that part out, but I'm trying to go with honesty," she revealed, and he gave an approving smile.</p><p> </p><p>"How's your mom's painting going?" he asked.</p><p> </p><p>"I haven't worked on it much this week," she replied. "I could have used tonight to do a lot, but this is more important, I've got time. I wonder if Asher and his 'connections' can point me in the direction of a frame that won't cost me everything I have."</p><p> </p><p>"I think he could, actually," he told her, laughing, and she shook her head in amazement. "We haven't stumped him yet. Nadine keeps threatening to ask him to get us all to a Cowboys game or something. He'll give her this look like he wants her to ask it for real and he thinks he can pull it off." Maya took this information with enough curiosity to make him think she couldn't wait to test out this theory.</p><p> </p><p>They got through the rest of the day as normally as any Friday could go. Everyone wanted to get the weekend started, maybe none more than their Spanish teacher, their last class of the day. She had a tendency of clocking out halfway through, putting on one movie or another with the Spanish dubbing. Most of them would either watch the screen distractedly or sneak some homework, the better to get it over with sooner. Today the six of them were all hunched over their textbooks.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, they were through, and they left to go and catch the bus to Maya's house. For having seen how she'd been the week before, he was relieved to see she didn't look in any way spooked the way she'd done that day. He always felt comforted by his friends' presence, and it looked to him now as though the same was true for her. He had caught her by surprise last Saturday. This wouldn't be the same. She'd be prepared this time, she'd have a choice, where she hadn't had one before. He couldn't wait for her to see it paid off, and for the others to see.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0063"><h2>63. His Introduction to Admiration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was one brief moment before they went into her room where he felt maybe as nervous as she did. He couldn't help it, and he hoped she didn't see or she might misinterpret and lose her resolve.</p><p> </p><p>They hadn't come to this moment right away. When they'd arrived, under Nadine's call, they had piled in around the kitchen table and done their homework. And when that had been dealt with, some… impatient people… had called for the shoot off to take place, so it was off to the backyard, where the order would be decided by whoever go their hands on the ball (Nadine's gift) first. Today, after a near thrashing jump for it, Dylan had been the one to get hold of the ball.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was the nerves privately working in her, knowing what was coming, but by the end of the match, Maya had been the one to stand victorious. She hadn't missed a single shot. Lucas had watched her and Nadine as they stood last after the four of them boys had been eliminated, and there really was no contest.</p><p> </p><p>"What?" she'd shrugged. "I practiced."</p><p> </p><p>Even if she might have written it off to that, when the match was done and her victory still had her energized, she'd turned to the rest of them and said she had something to show them. She took a breath before explaining how she had hesitated for a long time to let them see this, but that someone had recently allowed her to realize she didn't need to keep it private, not from them, and Lucas felt some pride that the four of them already looked like they understood this was one such thing they were meant to keep to themselves. He gave Maya a look, hoping she saw it, too, and she did. So, she'd taken them up to her bedroom door, which had been shut, and after that single beat of hesitation – the one he had felt right along with her – she had pushed it open.</p><p> </p><p>If they hadn't known what she intended to show them before, the way they all immediately fixed the walls as they walked in, looked around in stunned silence… Lucas hadn't been sure whether she intended for him to pretend like he hadn't known either, but even if she hadn't, it was stronger than him and he was scanning the walls again.</p><p> </p><p>The empty spaces remained empty, but the mystery behind them had been solved when Maya had seen him looking and she'd explained how she had picked off a few of them to send to her friend Riley back in New York. She thought they would help her get to know her life here, including the five of them.</p><p> </p><p>"Look at this one," Nadine had called to the others with a smile, and Lucas saw she was pointing to the one he had singled out on Saturday, all of them on the grass, the day of the sleepover. The boys were just as taken with it when they saw it. They all looked at themselves, how Maya had drawn them, and Lucas swore they all stood a little taller, glad for this image of them.</p><p> </p><p>They were quick to spot their other appearances around the walls, too. Dylan had beamed, pointing out one that showed him with his dog, Scruff, both of them sat on the ground and facing each other. Asher had found one from Halloween, where he and his twin had dressed so alike that they'd all spent all night confusing them, until Nadine had marked one of them without their knowing. She in turn had loved Maya's drawing of her in mid jump to throw the ball at the Orlandos' hoop, saying she'd made her look like an action star. And Zay had found one where he appeared, showing Maya a dance move, the first time they'd brought her to Chubbie's; he loved the motion of it. For Lucas, if he had to look beyond the six-shot, he could turn to one image where he sat outside his house, side by side with his grandfather.</p><p> </p><p>Maya explained how she'd started doing all of these right before moving here, same as she'd told him, told them how the images would often make her feel better when she missed New York. She also showed them the painting for her mother, and they had all been well impressed. Before she even had to ask him, Asher had said he could help get her a frame for the canvas if she needed one, and Maya had burst out laughing.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually they had left her room, and ever full of connections, Asher had called his uncle, who would send them dinner. They ate, sitting on the living room floor, watching the movie they'd selected while they waited for the food. By the time Maya's mother came home, Nadine and Zay had already had to head home, and Asher and Dylan had been about to leave. Dylan's brother, who'd come to pick them up, offered to drive Lucas, too, and he was about to go, but Maya asked him to wait, so he told the others to go on ahead and he'd get his own ride.</p><p> </p><p>"I have something I want you to have," she told him, moving back toward her room. He followed to see as she pulled a large black book from the second lowest shelf, just barely forcing her to stretch on to her toes. She went and sat on her bed, opening the book in her lap. From where he stood, he could see many more drawings as she flipped through the pages. Without needing to ask, he sort of understood these were more personal to her, the kind she wouldn't hang on her walls for all to see. He saw several likenesses of Maya's mother, and her New York friends, and even the six of them again. She stopped at one page, looked at it for a moment like she was making a decision, and then she carefully tore the sheet from the book. On the page underneath he saw a man with brown hair and a beard, and he wondered if it was her father.</p><p> </p><p>She set the book aside, shutting it before standing to go and hand the torn image to him. He took it as she told him she wanted him to have it, as a thank you for his having convinced her to bring the others in here to see her art. He said it was nothing, but she assured him that it really wasn't, not to her.</p><p> </p><p>In the drawing she'd given him, he recognized many things. It was the area just outside the Principal's office. He recognized the clothes they both wore, seated at either end of a row of three chairs, looking at each other. It was the day they'd met, the day it had all started, her becoming part of them. It looked like she'd first done it in pencil, but then added colors, only over the two of them, so that the space around them remained in only shades of gray.</p><p> </p><p>He held it in both his hands with the appreciation that it deserved. That day had meant something to the both of them, and here they were, recognizing it.</p><p> </p><p>"Thank you," he told her, and she gave him a smile that said he was most welcome. The page was placed inside his largest textbook for protection.</p><p> </p><p>His mother had come to pick him up, and Lucas and Maya had ended up out in the yard, taking turns with the ball after it had become clear that their mothers would be talking for a while. When it would be his turn, she would give sudden little shouts to try and distract him into missing, but whenever he would turn to her he would find her looking back at him, innocent as ever. When he had tried to pull the same tricks on her, she'd stopped where she stood, arms still outstretched, ready to shoot, and he gave her the same look she would give him. Her response had been to shoot anyway, without looking. When they heard the swish, she gave a wicked smile and he turned his eyes to the sky.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, his mother had called for him to come and they had left Maya's house. When he'd get home, he'd have to find a space for her gift. He didn't know if it would be on display or in private.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0064"><h2>64. His Fault For the Face</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He walked into school, that Monday morning, feeling his stomach in knots, and as much as he wished that he could write it off as something insignificant, there was just no way. He knew he couldn’t go back and change it anymore, that what was done was done and he’d have to either keep it a secret or…</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t on the steps when he came in, and for a moment he’d stood there, waiting to see if she would arrive then, but somewhere deep he had a feeling that she was already here, just somewhere else. He walked slowly down the halls, his feet carrying him to where her locker would be, thinking she might be there, and she was.</p><p> </p><p>He took a breath, trying to find the words, when a simple hello didn’t feel right, even if she had no idea about…</p><p> </p><p>But then she looked over her shoulder, only for a moment, and when his presence registered with her, she stopped. She turned back and looked at him again, and he felt what he could only describe as what it might have been like to fall suddenly and steeply from a great height. The look she gave him left absolutely no doubt.</p><p> </p><p>She knew.</p><p> </p><p>Coming in here today, the one thought that had kept him from turning into a nervous wreck had been the chance that she hadn’t somehow found out about the last weekend and he could either explain it or… something… But if she already knew, then he had no idea what it would all look like in her head… except there was her face.</p><p> </p><p>He was clear across the hall and he could feel her anger, overpowering, all consuming, and aimed squarely at him. Anger, but more… betrayal, shielding something he couldn’t find, not when all she gave off was fire. He almost couldn’t make himself walk those paces to go and meet her, even though he knew there was no way. He had to own up to it.</p><p> </p><p>It was something at least that, as he walked up to her, she didn’t move away. She stood in wait, leaving him to wonder if she was only waiting for him to get close enough to shout… or kick.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi…” he started, hoping she would look at him and find her friend there in his eyes, and doubting it at once. Her eyes were not finding a single thing. “Maya, I wanted to talk to you before, before you… well…” She said nothing, but he could hear the words even so. ‘Before what, Lucas?’</p><p> </p><p>He had nothing. He looked at her and nothing came. He froze, right when he needed to do anything but, and with every second that went by without an answer given, he would feel her pull further and further away from him. Even the notion of that couldn’t get even one word out of him, and he felt his panic swell. If she got just inches further, it would all be over.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to say something before the bell rings?” she asked, “The last thing I need right now is to get to class late. I’d hate to lose it on a teacher I actually like.” He’d never heard this tone in her voice before. It felt like something unearthed, and he was absolutely powerless against it, and her.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not their fault, okay?” he finally told her. “Whatever you think happened, you can’t blame them. Just me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” she told him, and having her accept this request so fast made it clear she already did. He didn’t know what she knew already, but of the five of them who stood to have this mistake thrown back at them, the betrayal had felt strongest coming from him.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he nodded slowly. “Good. I mean, not… not good, just…” He ran his hand to the back of his neck, clueless as to how he would do this. He was drowning, and she had every right to let him sink. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing. What could he even say? It didn’t really matter whether they’d known each other nearly six months or six years, he’d made a mistake, and that was it, really. The only difference time might have made would be to let her give him the benefit of the doubt just a bit easier.</p><p> </p><p>“I have to say, you sure know how to use your words. Oh, wait,” she frowned, shutting her locker and moving off down the hall. Lucas didn’t hesitate this time, taking off at a run so not to lose her or this chance to speak before classes began and he had to hold on to all this.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, hey, please… You have no idea how sorry I am, and I really, really am. Let me explain what happened. I’m not saying it’ll fix everything, I don’t expect it to, but I owe you that much and I want to do it.” She stopped, turning to him so fast they nearly knocked heads. Silence fell, marked by his quick apologies for the collision that wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“You have the floor, Friar. I can’t wait to hear this. You can’t do worse than you just did… then again, maybe you can.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0065"><h2>65. His Fault For Not Telling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He needed to just tell her what had happened. He knew there would be no way around how it had ended.</p><p> </p><p>Over the summer, he still hadn’t known whether or not he would be allowed back to school. It had been a point of stress for him for sure, and it had been up to his friends to give him encouragement that everything would work itself out. And it had. Three weeks before the start of the school year, he’d finally been reinstated, and he knew he would be starting that grade over, now with the others.</p><p> </p><p>To celebrate, they had put forth an idea, to go on a trip to Denver, to go skiing and snowboarding. They hadn’t expected for it to actually happen, but then Lucas’ mother had happened, and because she was in a celebrating mood now that he was going back to school, she had made it a reality, along with the other parents. It had all come together so quickly, and with the trip so many months away, they had eventually sort of forgotten.</p><p> </p><p>The months had passed, great months all of them, and all of them together, with Maya when she had come along. The further time advanced, the trip had gotten deeper and deeper into the back of their minds. And then the week before, Lucas’ mother had reminded him. None of them could believe they had forgotten it, but now here they were. Immediately, and this he swore to her, they had thought about her. Of course, they couldn’t possibly do this without her, which Lucas had told his mother, who had done all the preparations.</p><p> </p><p>The way she’d explained it, with the deal they had gotten, trying to add her in would not have been possible, not so close to the trip. She had felt awful about it, couldn’t believe even she hadn’t thought to bring it up before, but now they were too late. Maya wouldn’t get to come.</p><p> </p><p>When the others had found out, they’d been as bummed out as he’d been, and they had been sort of glad they hadn’t told her about it yet. They had figured they wouldn’t tell her about the trip, not until they could tell her she’d be flying off to Denver with them.</p><p> </p><p>So, they had found themselves at something like a crossroad. They could all just imagine what it would be like for her to hear that they were all going out there, and she couldn’t come. It just felt so wrong, unfair, and then they had somehow come to the idea that they could not tell her, not until after it was over, or maybe not at all.</p><p> </p><p>In hindsight, it felt like the stupidest thing for them to even consider it. And yet they had done it. He’d done it. He couldn’t think how he had ever thought it over and chosen that path, but he had, and they couldn’t change it.</p><p> </p><p>For days then they had kept the secret from her, had not told her they’d be flying off on Friday night, to return two nights later. And they had gone to Denver, Lucas, Zay, Nadine, Asher, Dylan, and Lucas’ parents.</p><p> </p><p>He reached this point in telling Maya the story and he had to pause, unable to ignore the look on her face. At the start of the story, she had quickly looked about as close to receptive as he might have hoped to see. But the closer he’d gotten to the decision he’d made, he’d only seen that receptiveness retreat, until there was just none of it left.</p><p> </p><p>He could hardly hold it against her, could he? Even hearing himself explain it to her, he felt like he wanted to hit his head on a wall a few dozen times. How had he ever… ever thought it would work? It hadn’t even been that he’d thought it would be a good idea, only that it could work, that it could be the one solution at their disposal, and he had made the call.</p><p> </p><p>“So, tell me,” Maya spoke after he’d been silent a while. “What was your next move? Today, just now, you came to see me, yeah? What were you going to tell me? ‘Hey, Maya, guess what we did this weekend,’” she spoke in a voice he guessed was supposed to be him. He could have told her he didn’t talk like that, but the look on her face made him think better of it. “Or were you going to pretend like it didn’t happen? You said that had been one of those choices you had, right? Just pretend like it had been a normal weekend.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I… I was going to tell you,” he told her, even though on the inside he knew he hadn’t been as sure of that as he might have made it sound. “But then you already know… so…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I did know,” she nodded, and the tremor in her voice was bordering on an earthquake. For a split second, he thought she might start crying, there in the hall, but she swallowed it down, took a deep breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you have to know, we never meant, I… I never meant to hurt you, I…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe you didn’t mean to, but you did… And it’s like you said, you made a choice, <em>you</em> did. Now let me tell you about <em>my</em> weekend.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0066"><h2>66. His Fault For Her Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as she started to tell him her side of it, he could practically see it in his head, could feel what she must have felt, to some degree.</p><p> </p><p>Friday afternoon, she had waved them off to get herself to her mother's co-worker's house, where she'd been asked to babysit her daughter, which had made it so she never even got to ask them what they'd be doing that afternoon, which she'd later discover was 'flying off to Denver.' She'd spent the next few hours watching the little girl, which had been a breeze, as the kid was the most well-behaved Maya had ever encountered. She had once told him how she felt like she had to be doing something wrong, just by standing side by side with her.</p><p> </p><p>She'd finally gotten home, and she'd been so tired that she had gone right to bed. On Saturday morning, she had written to all of them, looking to see if any of them might want to hang out. Her mother had pulled her in to some chores, which had taken her through the hours before she saw none of them had replied. She hadn't thought too much of it, and she’d sent out another message and gone on with her day, wondering where they'd all gone off to.</p><p> </p><p>When Sunday morning rolled in and she still found not a single reply from any of them, she started to get worried. Ideas were quick to sprout in her head. The first one, most terrifying of all, was that something might have happened to them, because why else would they all fall off the map at once like that? But no, surely she would have heard something if that had been it, so it couldn't be, but even so she hadn't been able to shake that thought, not completely, and it had left a knot in her heart until she'd learned the truth.</p><p> </p><p>She'd called each one of them in turn, trying not to sound like she'd lost her mind as she had left each one a voice message. Lucas had heard it, when he'd gotten home, and he'd seen the texts. He remembered her voice the most, and as much as she'd tried to sound casual, he had heard it in there, the worry. <em>Hey, Lucas, haven't heard from any of you since Friday, where are you?</em></p><p> </p><p>After lunch the day before, when there had been no texts, no calls in return, she'd felt the knot tighten and she'd taken off to go and try to find them. She'd gone to his house first and found no one was home. She'd gone to Nadine's and no one was there (later, she'd remembered the little sisters' dance class). Finally, she had gone to Zay's house, where his mother Lynette had at once untied the knot in her heart by telling her they were all fine, only to choke her heart with the confused look she'd gotten as she'd told her son's friend that he and the rest of them were on their ski trip to Denver. Hadn't she known? Lynette had been certain Maya was out there with them, too.</p><p> </p><p>She didn't completely remember how she'd left the Babineaux house, only that she'd found her way back home like some robot, unable to compute what she'd just learned. They had lied to her, right to her face, every last one of them. They'd flown off to Denver without telling her. Wouldn't they think she would have understood? She would have, even if she was bummed out, she would have understood.</p><p> </p><p>So, then the conclusion it left her with, terrible and all-consuming, was that she'd had it wrong, that all this time they had been those same people who'd gone and left her behind. All this time, she had thought them her friends, but now she didn't see it anymore, she couldn't. Now, the last several months of her life were all lies.</p><p> </p><p>"It's not," Lucas finally spoke, and how she flinched... It made him take a step back as though he believed she really would hit him this time. Maybe she should have. Maybe he should have let her. "Maya..." he begged.</p><p> </p><p>"You're off the hook, okay?" she told him, her voice showing how very close she was to breaking. "Whatever this was, you don't have to do it anymore. I don't want a guide anymore, so you're fired, I guess."</p><p> </p><p>"Maya, I wasn't..." he took a step forward, and she stepped back immediately.</p><p> </p><p>"You leave me alone," she told him. And she turned and ran. And he couldn't move. He watched her go, feeling like he couldn't so much as make a sound. The last thing he had ever wanted to do, and he had done it to her, not on purpose but he had done it, and he couldn't take it back.</p><p> </p><p>He didn't know how long he stood there on his own, staring at the space where she'd stood as though the memory of her alone was binding him to remain as he stood. He didn't know how long it had been when a hand tapped his shoulder, and he looked back - briefly thinking it might be her - only to find Nadine looking back at him, the three boys there with her, too. They looked at him, and they quickly grew concerned, asking what was wrong.</p><p> </p><p>"Maya knows... about Denver, she knows."</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0067"><h2>67. His Fault For Guilt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If Maya thought their affection toward her had been in any way untrue, an act, then he wished she could have seen the look on all their faces as he’d told them what had just happened. They had seen and heard her messages, too, they had to have done so by now. And looking at Zay, he knew his friend had heard from his mother about Maya’s visit, he had to. For the smallest moment, he felt upset with Zay for not telling him this as soon as he’d been told, but the moment passed. It was as he’d told Maya, he held no one responsible but himself, and neither should she. His call, his fault.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to go and talk to her,” Dylan had been the first to talk, looking confident that this was what they had to do, and he would have gone right to find her if Asher hadn’t held him back. He thought it would only make matters worse if they just kept pushing.</p><p> </p><p>“And if we stay back, aren’t we going to let her think that we really don’t care? That she’s not really our friend?” Nadine asked, eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. Zay had reached out, pressing his hand to her arm to try and comfort her. “We shouldn’t have gone. If she couldn’t come, then none of us should have either, or… or I could have stayed and let her take my place…”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s too late for all that,” Asher told her, as plainly as he could. “It’s done now. Telling her all that won’t change it either. If she thinks we’ve been pretending all this time, then she won’t know to trust anything we tell her anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Asher was right. Nadine was right, and so was Dylan. They were all right in what they said, but all Lucas could hear was how they had messed up about as bad as they could, and there was nothing they could do to fix it.</p><p> </p><p>Sooner or later they’d have to get to class, and so they did, carrying their dread heavily in each step. Coming into class, they found her there, sitting in her usual seat, but nothing else about the scene felt in any way familiar. Maya sat hunched over her desk, her blond hair shading her face from view, but her posture alone said it all. She was tense with all that she felt, distant to her surroundings. Did she even care that she was in class anymore?</p><p> </p><p>Lucas looked to the other four around him. They hadn’t seen her before, they hadn’t seen that look in her eyes the way he had. He wouldn’t soon forget it. They didn’t know what to do beyond the thing they could and had to do. They went and sat in their usual seats.</p><p> </p><p>He had never appreciated the seating arrangement for what it had created, right up until it had been turned on them. The six of them had the first three seats of the two rows nearest to the windows. At the far side, there he was, Maya behind him and Zay behind her, and next to them Nadine, then Asher, and then Dylan. It made it so that, bordered by a wall of windows on one side, Maya was otherwise completely encircled by the rest of them. She was fenced in. It used to be that it made them stand as her protection, her circle of friends. Today… today she looked like she saw herself a prisoner, surrounded by liars.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t know what was happening behind him, and it made him that much more uncomfortable. But then so what? He’d put himself in this mess. Was it any worse than her having to look at the back of his head anytime she had to face forward once class started? Should he change seats? Would it help? Would it make it worse?</p><p> </p><p>If he had to make an assumption, Lucas would say it was highly unlikely that any one of them paid much attention in class that morning. Every time they reconvened in their next period it was no better. She wouldn’t look at them, and she hadn’t said a word, except when called upon by a teacher. Even then, it was as brief as possible, and silence would fall again. Lucas could see Nadine, sat next to him, looking back toward Maya a few times, before looking down at her books again.</p><p> </p><p>At lunch, they hadn’t seen her at all except for a moment in line, and then she and her tray had disappeared. The conversation at their table had been non-existent.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the day had been a lot of the same. They had been shut out, and they were taking it, because they couldn’t find the way back in. Maya gave them nothing that might indicate she was either ready or willing to hear them out yet. So, they did all they could. They let her have her space, no matter how much they were hurting, too; she was hurting worse.</p><p> </p><p>When the day was done, they all went their separate ways, making no move to do anything but go off to their own homes. Maybe tomorrow would be better, maybe… Well, she wouldn’t just up and forgive them, but she might at least let them talk to her? She might talk to them. Maybe one of them would find that way in that they had lost.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0068"><h2>68. His Fault For Everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas arrived home and went straight to his room. He sat at his desk, and he stared at the wall for a good long while before he actually came around to pull his homework out and do it. If he had something to keep him and his head busy, then he might have been okay. Except…</p><p> </p><p>Except the reason he’d been staring at his wall was not for the wall itself, but for the sheet of paper stuck to it, over the cluster of pictures of his friends and his calendar. Maya’s drawing, the one she’d given him. It wouldn’t have been right to put it anywhere else than on a wall. Art should be on display. In the last few weeks, it had been making him feel joy whenever he saw it.</p><p> </p><p>Today, all it did was make him feel guilt, and sadness, and anger at himself… Disappointment at himself… He’d let her down, he’d let <em>them</em> down, the bond represented in that image. And it wasn’t just the two of them being affected by his action, it was all of them, six of them in misery, who knew for how long.</p><p> </p><p>He did his homework. He was at a snail’s pace, but he got through it, and by the time he was done, he was being called down for dinner. He wasn’t all that hungry, but he went because he had to. He sat there, his mother at one end of the table, his father at the other; the conversation just went right over his head as he spent the next long while pushing his food around with his fork, taking a bite every so often.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas,” his father’s voice finally registered, letting him guess he had been called to a few times already, without success. He turned his head to face him, though his eyes had difficulty meeting his. “Where’s your head at tonight, son?”</p><p> </p><p>His mother had gone off to the kitchen, they were alone, his father and him, but now what was he going to say? All he had to do was look at him and he knew what he would tell him. But he couldn’t just walk away either. His father would not let him go wordless.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he told him, but he could still feel his eyes on him. He sat back in his chair. “I… made a mistake. And I hurt a friend. And I can’t fix it.” He was quiet, they both were.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, at the start of the year, I didn’t know if you would be able to get back on track from last year’s… derailment. If you could prove me wrong there, then maybe you can turn this situation of yours around, too.” It wasn’t exactly the most gratifying thing, to hear his father had thought him hopeless. But he was also telling him not to give up, wasn’t he? It wasn’t what he’d expected from him at least.</p><p> </p><p>The lift in his spirit had been minimal at best. It was one thing to be told he would get there, but if he didn’t know how, then he’d be standing in place and no more. Wasn’t his mother the one who was the ‘big picture’ one? By the time he’d gone back to his room, he was thinking about the six of them sitting so miserably today.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You’re off the hook, okay? Whatever this was, you don’t have to do it anymore.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He almost didn’t care about making himself feel better. All he wanted was for her not to be in pain anymore. She’d be home right now, feeling that pain, feeling alone, because of him. She could yell at him, glare at him, all of it. He had it coming. But it wasn’t fixing anything to just yell and glare, was it?</p><p> </p><p>He’d taken something away from her. She needed to get it back. It sounded simple. It was anything but.</p><p> </p><p>Asher had said there was no point in them wishing they’d done things differently, that it wouldn’t help anything, and he was right, sure, but that night as he lay in bed, trying to sleep, the only way he was able to do it in the end had been to give in to some denial, to tell himself he could make it all better, erase the last few days. He would find a way, he would fight harder, he would get Maya up in Denver with them, and they would all have the trip they had envisioned over the summer before she’d come along. Or he would not go at all, stay in Austin, same as her, because if she couldn’t go then what was the point? Or he would just tell her the truth, that they’d tried to get her in with them and they couldn’t. He would do about everything else except what he’d done.</p><p> </p><p>He woke up, Tuesday morning, and as the memory of the day before awoke with him, he felt his stomach sink. He was nowhere nearer to fixing things. Unless something had changed in the night, and he couldn’t imagine that anything would have, then he could look forward to another day of distraction, of silence, of isolation. Six of them in misery.</p><p> </p><p>He almost didn’t go to school, not because he couldn’t face her but because he thought maybe if she didn’t have to see him for a day, she would feel better. But his father had faith in him again, and in Lucas’ mind that was Maya’s work, Maya’s legacy. He couldn’t dishonor it.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0069"><h2>69. His Fault For the Rift</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya wasn’t on the steps when he arrived at school. She wasn’t at her locker either, and it wasn’t until he walked into first period, with Zay and Nadine, that they came across her. Like the morning before, she was at her desk, hunched down over her books. Elbows planted on the desk, hands in her hair and holding up her head, they could just barely see her face. She looked so far away, and there was a darkness to her eyes like she hadn’t been sleeping well. Lucas pulled Zay back.</p><p> </p><p>“Switch seats with me? For now?” he asked, and Zay nodded. They turned back to find Nadine had stepped forward in these seconds, carefully lowering herself into Lucas’ chair in front of Maya’s desk, looking at her. If Maya was aware of her presence, she gave no sign. Lucas would have told Nadine to leave her be, but it was too late, they had to wait and see. Maybe Nadine could get through to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Maya,” she spoke quietly. No movement. “Please, you have to know we didn’t lie, not about how we care about you. We’re your friends. I know we made a mistake, and we feel terrible for making it, for how it hurt you. Just say something, tell us how we can make it up to you,” she begged, and if Maya had looked up, she would have seen so much sincerity in the other girl’s eyes. He knew how much it had meant to Nadine for Maya to have become one of them. She was wholly part of their group, and she’d always been happy with them, but she had never had a girlfriend in that group, not until Maya, and she had become that much more special for it.</p><p> </p><p>But Maya didn’t look up, and she didn’t see. Eventually, Nadine had gotten up, taking the step to take her into her usual seat with resolute defeat. Lucas watched Zay move into the seat she had vacated, and again an attempt was made.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, good morning,” he started, attempting to sound chipper, maybe, but coming off more awkward than anything as he got no sign of life out of her either. “So GiGi’s birthday’s coming up. Ninety-five years old, that’s… that is old. Just don’t tell her that. She still says she doesn’t feel a day over sixty; I have to say yes or else she won’t bake for me anymore,” he chuckled. If his goal had been to make her smile or laugh, he got nothing. “Anyway, she invited all of us, so that means you, too, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>As he told her all this, Lucas had moved to go and take Zay’s usual seat, but even as he was about to take that place, Zay had given him a look, and he understood. This wouldn’t change anything.</p><p> </p><p>So, the two boys trailed the aisle, crossing each other and returning to their usual seats, just as Asher and Dylan arrived. They had to sense the mood; they didn’t try anything, only sat as usual and waited, Lucas sat in his chair, the third to take it this morning, and against his better judgment, he turned to face her, just as they’d done.</p><p> </p><p>She wore her anguish so plainly for all to see, and no one would feel that they could get anywhere near her… Lucas most of all. She was right there, and she might as well have been anywhere else in the world. Nadine had talked to her, Zay had talked to her, and he… he wanted to talk to her. The words were as far as she was. So, he turned back to look forward, and he let her be.</p><p> </p><p>The day went by much as it had done the day before. Classes happened, and they sat in them, but they couldn’t say that they could have shown they had retained much of anything. The only time they saw Maya be anything else than the still statue she was as they waited for class to start was when moving between those classes or during each period, when she might have been called upon. She would give the bare minimum. They wouldn’t see her at lunch, and when the day was done, she was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Tuesday ended much as Monday had done, and it replicated itself in the shape of Wednesday, just one more miserably silent, cold day. No one had tried to talk to her… at her… knowing in one glance that it wouldn’t have done a thing to try. She was just as shut off. Her eyes looked even darker.</p><p> </p><p>He was terrified to think how long this might last. How long would he have to stare at her and feel helpless when she was the one who needed help? He had done the breaking. Him, not them. He had to do the fixing. He had to do whatever it would take, and he couldn’t put it off anymore.</p><p> </p><p>It was already after dinner. His father wouldn’t let him just go, neither would his mother. If he managed to convince them, they’d want to go with him. He couldn’t have that. All that was left to him was one chance… one risk. He could go, sneak out without their knowing. The risk of course was that they would find out, and when they did then that faith his father had rebuilt could be taken from him. But Lucas had told himself all he needed to make his choice. He had to do whatever it would take, and he couldn’t put it off anymore, no matter the risk to him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0070"><h2>70. His Fault For the Pain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He half ran, half sprinted, until he reached Zay’s house, where he borrowed his bike and continued on to Maya’s house. When he arrived, he knew he had no clue what he could or would say, but he was going to have to try anyway. He walked to the door and rang the bell. After a minute, the door opened, putting him face to face with a stone-faced blonde.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, she doesn’t want to see you,” Maya’s mother told him. He didn’t have to ask what the woman thought of him right now, by the look on her face, and he would not have been surprised if she’d gone and yelled at him or just slammed the door in his face. Maybe, he thought, she was feeling as lost as he was, wishing to make Maya better and not knowing how.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, but… Please, Miss Hart.”</p><p> </p><p>“Go home, Lucas,” she shook her head, finally shutting the door, slowly. He stood there a moment, hoping she would return, knowing she wouldn’t. He couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t. Whatever it took…</p><p> </p><p>Stepping off the front porch, he looked to the side, and he knew what his one option was. With any luck, he wouldn’t get mistaken for a burglar, or a Peeping Tom. He moved around the side of the house, until he found her bedroom window.</p><p> </p><p>The curtains were open on one side, which was of some relief, though he was scared for a moment about what he would find when he looked inside. What if she’d removed all the drawings from her walls, or even just the ones where he and the others appeared, just torn them away in anger… What if she was crying?</p><p> </p><p>Her walls didn’t look ravaged. Not a single page appeared to be missing, at least from where he stood. He only gave it a passing thought though. There she was. She was lying on her bed, still in the clothes she’d worn at school, but she looked like she was trying to fall asleep anyway. She was staring up at the ceiling, definitely not sleeping yet.</p><p> </p><p>Now what was he supposed to do? What would she do when she saw he was there? Call the cops, maybe.</p><p> </p><p>It took a moment for him to hear it. The faint noise of the television, coming from somewhere. Inside the house? He looked down at the window, finally seeing it was open, just a few inches. He took a breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he spoke, keeping his voice as low as he could, while still loud enough for her to hear. In class, she wouldn’t have moved, but here it was too unexpected for her not to react, and she sat up in surprise before turning her head.</p><p> </p><p>When she saw him, standing outside her window, she stared at him for a beat, and he couldn’t say what was going through her mind until the decision reached her face and she hurried forward, to close the window. He didn’t put much thought into what he did next except for how much he didn’t want her to shut that window. So, he put his hand in the gap, just as <em>her</em> hands gripped the top of it, about to push it down.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, stop!” he quickly begged, and he discovered a quickness in her reflexes he hadn’t known. She may have hated his guts right now, but she stopped the window from slamming into his hand. He breathed, his heart slamming with the shock.</p><p> </p><p>“Take your hand away,” she spoke, her first words to him since Monday morning. “Next time, I won’t stop.”</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t. And you will,” he told her, keeping her gaze, this again for the first time since Monday. “I’ve been trying to find a way to have you listen to me all week, look… Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Five minutes and if you still want to shut that window on me, I’ll go.” She stared at him, eyes giving nothing again.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine. Five minutes,” she agreed.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I come inside?” he asked. She gave him a look, and he bowed his head. “It’s fine, I’ll stay here. And time’s ticking already, I’m guessing?” She nodded. “Maya, I am sorry. You have to know how much, I… I’ll probably be grounded for the rest of my life for coming to see you, but if I’ve set things right it will be worth it, completely. You know what’s the worst part in all this? Well… there are a lot, but under all that it’s the fact that I thought I’d be sparing you from getting hurt when I decided not to tell you, and I ended up doing more harm than I thought I would if I told you. I’ve made some dumb mistakes in my life, but this was the dumbest one.”</p><p> </p><p>She sat on the bay window’s seat, not really looking at him though she did listen. He probably could have removed his hand, but he left it there on principle. He leaned his forehead to the glass.</p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t have missed much either,” he finally admitted. “The trip wasn’t even any good. None of us had a good time, we were too caught up in how you weren’t there. I know you’ve been thinking that we lied to you about all of it, but we really didn’t. There are six of us now. There will always be six of us. And there wasn’t, not in Denver. We did what we thought we had to do, I did, when I decided not to tell you. But we didn’t see what it would mean once we left. We didn’t ski or snowboard once, ask my parents. My mother had a fit about how they paid to take us there and all we did was sit, or walk, or… wait to come home. Our hearts weren’t in it. We needed you, Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>He’d just been speaking all this time, letting the words come now that they finally would. When he stopped, he turned his eyes back to her and found she’d started crying.</p><p> </p><p>At once, he pushed the window up with his hand, climbed through to sit on the seat with his legs still dangling outside the house, and he put his arms around her. He didn’t know if she’d push him away. She didn’t. He had her in his arms, and she lowered her forehead to his shoulder, letting herself be held, so he pulled her a little nearer, from a hold to a hug, and in the next breath there were her arms, closing around his waist like they were holding for dear life.</p><p> </p><p>His five minutes were well expired by the time he got her talking again, and with how he’d had her sobbing at his ear all this time, it was a wonder her mother hadn’t barged in to find him in her daughter’s room, holding her, and chased him away. But she didn’t come. Instead, he heard Maya’s voice, low but near.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so tired…” she said.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he assured her. “I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“I want to go home…” she spoke again, even lower, and he knew somewhere that as much as she had been genuinely upset with him, with all of them, there’d been something else to it, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t just that he’d made her feel betrayed. He’d made her homesickness surge, maybe as strong as it had ever been. He took a breath. Another decision. This one made his sneaking out here tonight feel like a breeze.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he told her. A few seconds went by in silence. Slowly, she pulled back to look at him, with those puffy red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she asked, confused. He just stared back at her, in complete seriousness.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to go home, then let’s go. Ride to New York. I promised you that back in September, remember? Told you I’d find a way if that was what you wanted. Maya? Is it what you want? Do you want to go to New York?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0071"><h2>71. Their Road to All Clear</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Right after he’d been told he would get to return to school back over the summer, he had felt such a relief, a weight lifted. He knew all his issues were not solved, that he’d still have so much more to deal with in time, but at least he had this, and it was something. That was what he felt like that night as he wheeled the bike back to Zay’s house. The issue with Maya and the Denver trip was not solved either, but after tonight, after the talk they’d had, a weight had lifted, just as it had done over the summer.</p><p> </p><p>He found Zay waiting in the yard as he came up with the bike. The curiosity was high in his eyes. He needed to know what had happened. Lucas started to tell him, as much as he felt he could. He told Zay how he’d gone up to the door, but Maya’s mother wouldn’t let him in to see her, so he’d gone up to her window. His friend gave him a look of slight reproach at this, but he still wanted him to carry on.</p><p> </p><p>He told him he had convinced Maya to let him try and set things straight, though he left out the specifics as to how he’d done it and moved on to what mattered. Leaving out the crying and the hugging, he told Zay how Maya had expressed the root of her anger, and the wave of homesickness she had been feeling. He told him how she’d said she wanted to go back to New York and how he’d agreed to help.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait a minute,” Zay cut him off. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing? Lucas…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s okay,” Lucas told him. “She changed her mind,” he revealed. “She said she didn’t want to make trouble, and she’d be fine now,” he added, and as he said it now it didn’t sound the same to him as when she’d said it. Zay put his doubts to words.</p><p> </p><p>“So, let me get this straight. She’s been walking around like a rage zombie for three days, then she tells you everything is fine when you try and give her what she wants… and you believed her?”</p><p> </p><p>Well, he had. But now he wasn’t so sure anymore, now… now he had a very bad feeling. She didn’t want to make trouble, she’d said, but was that as plain as it sounded? If he had somehow gotten her to see he was still her friend, then she would be the same to him. And she wouldn’t want her friend in trouble. But her…</p><p> </p><p>“She’s going to New York,” he blanched, looking around as though he’d suddenly spot her and be able to stop her. He moved back toward the street, soon trailed by Zay on the bicycle.</p><p> </p><p>“Alone? At this hour? <em>Alone?</em>” A fourteen-year-old girl travelling unaccompanied across the country? He’d tried to fix one mess and made another, hadn’t he? She’d never make it…</p><p> </p><p>“I have to find her, to stop her.” He reached for his phone, sent a text, then just as he’d hit ‘send’ he regretted it immediately. She could have left her phone at home. If at all possible, he wanted her to get out of this without notice. That ship was bound to have sailed for him. Her mother might find her phone, and then she’d know.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d say hop on, but it might be better if we did this the other way around,” Zay stopped just past him and got off. Lucas got on the bike, Zay behind him and holding as best he could as they took off. “I can’t wait until we can drive!” he shouted in a hint of panic, just at Lucas’ ear.</p><p> </p><p>“She can’t just get to the airport, can she?” he asked, thinking out loud. “That would take too long, or… train station,” he decided, and he imagined a route from Maya’s house to the station. Her sense of directions had become stellar in the last few months, as she’d been prone to display, which told him she’d have no trouble finding her way there. He didn’t think she would magically get to the station, acquire a ticket, board and depart, all before he got there, but he still needed to hurry, to know she’d be alright.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe you fell for that,” Zay still found it in him to have a laugh at this, one breath before telling him to be careful or they would crash.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, thanks, I know,” Lucas frowned, unsure if he was responding to one comment or both.</p><p> </p><p>If they all got out of this unscathed and not in a world of trouble, he would… Well, first he would be completely stunned… But more importantly, he would learn from the experience, all of it, and the mistake with the lie most of all. He wouldn’t have been cycling like his life depended on it, in the dark, with his friend holding on to him, trying to prevent another friend from making a mistake of her own, not if he’d known better back then. Now, he did know better, and in the future…</p><p> </p><p>“Is that her?” Zay asked. “Maya!” he shouted. She jumped and turned around and for the second time that night he felt a weight lifted from his shoulders, both literally – Zay – and figuratively – Maya. She stood there and she waited as Lucas and Zay went and caught up to her. “Are you out of your mind? Also are we cool?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0072"><h2>72. Their Road to Clarity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had imagined herself with her hand as the stopper to a great volcano, raging beneath her palm. It didn’t matter that it burned; she’d carried those scars so long. Days ago, she’d been thrown off her post, the fire had run and taken her over. Day upon day, it consumed her and refused to let relief find her, not even in sleep. But now, tonight… the rain had come in, and she had taken a breath of air.</p><p> </p><p>Who knew how much time she would need to recover? All she cared to know was that it was happening. Suddenly she knew what she had to do, and it was all because of him. The best show she could make of her gratitude then was not to involve him. She’d sent him away. She’d told her mother she was going to bed. She’d packed a bag, quickly, and she’d taken off. In time she might regret her actions, and what they would create, but not now… Now she knew what she had to…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya!”</p><p> </p><p>The sound of her name had been so sharply unexpected, and she jumped as she came to a stop and whirled around. When she saw the pair of them, she felt a flood of emotions, not of fire but of surprise that was not so surprised, of frustration that was also relief, and of remorse, for the memories she had of those last dark days. But she stood there as they came to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you out of your mind?” Zay frowned at her, only for a moment before adding “Also are we cool?” She looked at him, and then she hugged him. “Oh, alright, that’s a yes,” he smiled as she pulled back. She didn’t know what to tell him, any more than she’d known what to say to Lucas before. But the way she saw things, it could have been the last time she saw him, and she didn’t want to leave things how they’d been.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you can’t just go like that,” Lucas told her. She looked at him, and she thought about how he’d held her, back in her room. She didn’t know how she’d ever doubted him anymore. It still hurt, the lie, but not the way it had before.</p><p> </p><p>“Why not? It was your idea, wasn’t it?” she replied. Zay turned to Lucas with a reproachful shake of the head. “I have to go,” Maya told them. “Look, I tried. I really did. But what good is any of it if I only end up wanting to be back there so much? It’s like a migraine, and it never stops,” she explained. She didn’t know that she could really make them understand it all.</p><p> </p><p>“What about your mother?” Lucas asked, and she felt a tremor in her heart. “She doesn’t know, does she?”</p><p> </p><p>“My mom would never let me sneak off in the middle of the night like this,” Zay declared. “Don’t think hers would either. Then again…”</p><p> </p><p>“Why are you trying to talk me out of it now?” Maya looked to Lucas. “Or were you saying all that before for nothing?” He didn’t say anything. “Right, so I’m going.” She turned and started back the way she’d been headed. After a few seconds, she heard footsteps and the telltale roll of bicycle wheels on her trail. They fell in at either side of her like her escort.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, she’d been thinking about her mother. How could she not? She tried not to, she did. When she’d told her that she was off to bed and her mother had held her in her arms for a moment, she’d wanted so much to hold her a little tighter. She knew there’d be no coming back from this, no matter how it all ended, she would always have chosen to do this. And when she’d gone back to her room, she had hesitated. She could just get into bed, close her eyes, try to sleep… She might actually manage it this time. But the pain was still there, and it would not go away. The way to stop it was in New York.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not,” Lucas told her.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not?” Zay interjected. “I thought we were running after her to stop her from going out there and getting herself snatched up by some creeping blonde… snatcher, or something. You’re actually on board with this?” he asked. Maya looked from Zay and back to Lucas, who turned to her, too.</p><p> </p><p>“I said I was, right?” She smiled, barely, and he returned it. Maybe she still needed her guide.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, you said it,” she confirmed. Zay still looked borderline scandalised, but he also had the look of someone who would stand by regardless. They walked on for a while, the three of them in silence. If they were there with her until she headed off, maybe it would be nice.</p><p> </p><p>She was really doing this. It would be days on the road, she knew, but all she could think about was what she would find on the other side. The places, the people… She might even find herself, what parts she hadn’t found now to be stuck back inside where they belonged.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you tell Nadine, Asher and Dylan, how I’ll miss them, too? And maybe tell them sorry for how I was?”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I said I was on board, but I agree with him, too,” Lucas pointed to Zay. “I’m going with you.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0073"><h2>73. Their Road to Reconciliation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d come to a stop again. Maya was looking at him, and Lucas knew she would tell him no, but he wasn’t having it. He didn’t need Zay to fill his head with horrible ideas of what might happen to her out there. He was already doing it to himself. He was not letting her go alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Remember that day, in the museum? The guy who didn’t want to get busted for sneaking around?” she asked him. “Where’s <em>that</em> guy, because he would never sign up for this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, he would, I mean… he is, I mean… I am,” he frowned, then moving on, “None of it matters, not for this. If you’re going then I am, too, and that’s all.” She shook her head. “I left you behind once, I’m not doing it again, okay?” He watched as she took this in, thought it through… As tired as she still looked, there was color in her eyes like he hadn’t seen in days, and it was more reassuring than he knew to explain.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she finally replied, and then, “Thanks.” She looked at Zay, and when Lucas looked, too, he found his friend tapping at his phone. “What are you doing?” Maya asked. Zay looked up.</p><p> </p><p>“Letting the others know everything’s alright now,” he revealed, then, “It is, right?” She nodded. “Yeah, it is,” he beamed, typing again. “Also told them about this little escapade of ours,” he added, motioning between the three of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay!” Lucas interjected just as Maya did. Zay gave them both a look before shrugging.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, ‘our’ escapade?” Lucas asked, as he recalled what he’d said. Zay ignored him, still typing. When he snuck a look at his screen, he saw something along the lines of ‘someone come get my bike.’ “You’re not coming, too…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, so it’s okay for <em>you</em> to do something crazy for a friend, but not me. I don’t want her to die either, there are some messed up people out there, alright? I’m being all noble and brave here, it’s a big moment for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it’s a big moment for him,” Maya chimed in with a smirk, and Zay nodded, chin up, straightening his jacket. “Isaiah the Noble,” she declared, and Lucas almost snorted. He’d carry that name around for months. “Seriously though, you don’t have to,” she added. “What about GiGi’s birthday?”</p><p> </p><p>“You heard all that?” he sounded surprised, and she looked just a bit awkward over her shutting them out earlier. “She won’t mind. Actually, she’ll probably whoop my butt if I let you go out there like that, even if he’s going,” he indicated Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, she would,” he had to agree, and Zay nodded as though telling her ‘See?’ Maya looked from one to the other, and Lucas sensed what was going through her mind was probably somewhere about how much she didn’t feel she deserved this, after how she’d ignored them these past few days, even though they had been the ones at fault, or he was. Lucas tried to pass some courage her way with a nod, and when she nodded back it meant she’d taken it.</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” she breathed. “We better get moving,” she declared, and they started to walk toward the station again. Zay’s phone was giving a telltale sound every couple of seconds, telling the other two walking at his side that Nadine and the boys were sending message upon message. Lucas imagined that was normal, if three of your friends were about to run off to New York as they were.</p><p> </p><p>As they walked, Zay would read them out, like a report. On the one hand, they all sounded relieved that Maya wasn’t upset at them anymore, but on the other they were understandably concerned over what they were about to do. Nadine was afraid they would get lost and end up in Canada somehow. Dylan told them they shouldn’t do it but sounded as though he wished he were going with them. And Asher promised he’d get Zay’s bike, though he also showed skepticism they would pull this off. But nothing they said was swaying what they intended to do, and in time their doubts turned into well wishes, because what else were they going to do? More than anything, they wanted Maya to find what she was looking for.</p><p> </p><p>“Hand it over,” she told Zay as they got on a bus. He passed the phone, and she started typing. Lucas could see as she wrote, and he read over her shoulder. He read as she told them thanks for what they said, and for everything they had done for her since her arrival.</p><p> </p><p>For the first time it sank in with Lucas that there was a chance, when this was all over, that he would be saying goodbye to her. It was not what he wanted. He’d gotten to see what it was like these past few days, not to have Maya as a part of his life. She had been there, sure, but she had been gone really. And they had been the worst days he’d had for a long time. He might have tried to talk her out of this for those reasons. He wouldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0074"><h2>74. Their Road to Travels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they arrived at the train station, it was the first time after all their debate on who would or wouldn’t go or if even anyone at all <em>would</em> attempt this crossing, that they remembered their age. They realized what it must have looked like for a trio of kids as young as them to show up on their own at this hour at the station. They didn’t want to look suspicious, but they also developed – in Zay most of all – a bit of paranoia.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you need to relax,” Maya muttered, gripping his arm. “Your freaking out is the only thing that’s causing trouble here. Think about nice things… Vanessa, think about her.” Like magic, a smile grew over his face. “Yeah, alright, tone it down just one notch,” she tapped him on the shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>They moved deeper into the station, looking around. They stopped at a bench, where Zay used his phone to look up how much it would cost for them to make it from Austin to New York.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, do you even have money to buy a ticket?” Lucas asked. He had a card, for emergencies, and this might have qualified more than anything in his book, but it was bound to get flagged somewhere. And Zay, he didn’t even know what he had on him. They hadn’t exactly left home knowing they would be headed out of state. They were stuck with the clothes on their back.</p><p> </p><p>“As a matter of fact,” she reached into her bag, showing him a tin box. “It’s everything I’ve got saved up, some I got from my mom over the last few months, and some a friend of ours left to me… for emergencies,” she nodded to herself. “It’s more than I ever had in my life.” She sounded so… aware of that fact. She had talked to him about what her life was like back in New York, he wasn’t sure to what degree, but he knew it had been getting better. She hadn’t forgotten what it had been like before. She still had attachments to it. No matter what, some part of her needed to go back. He could understand that.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah,” Zay spoke, and they turned to him. “So, on the one hand, that is a <em>lot</em> of money…” he trailed off, squinting at his screen. Silence stretched, and stretched, and… Lucas poked his arm.</p><p> </p><p>“Other thing?” he asked. In response, Zay pointed to the ‘other thing.’ Lucas and Maya leaned in on either side of him and read the words that had given Zay the look of doubt he now wore.</p><p> </p><p>“Children thirteen to fifteen traveling alone,” Maya read out, and they sat back. “Well that’s us… Any chance you’ve got yourself a fake ID there, Huckleberry? You’re our only shot at passing for an adult here,” she threw him a look, to which he frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t get offended by that… only because… well… never mind,” he looked back down to the phone. He didn’t want to get into how hearing her call him that name had made him happy. “What does it say?”</p><p> </p><p>“What <em>doesn’t </em>it say?” Zay shook his head. “They won’t let us travel overnight on our own, no transfers, and oh there’s an interview to tell if we’re okay to travel. Any chance it’s multiple choice? I can’t do essay…” He was trying to stay positive, but Lucas had already lost that battle, and looking over, he saw that Maya had, too. He got up and went to sit next to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked. “We can find another way.” She turned to look at him. She wanted to keep believing it was possible, he could see it, but it was showing in her eyes it was fading fast. “Remember what I told you, the day we met? You asked me for a ride to New York?”</p><p> </p><p>“That you didn’t have a license yet, but that if I needed it, you’d just… have to think of something,” she recalled, smiling. “So, is this it? Are you going to go full cowboy on me?” He reached to his forehead, gripping and tipping an imaginary hat with a smirk. She laughed and he saw her optimism rise up again. Now he just hoped it wouldn’t be for nothing. They still had no way to get to New York.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, now I can’t wait to hear this,” Zay sat looking at him. “I mean what are you planning to do? If we can’t take a train then we probably can’t take a bus either, or a plane. Even if one of us knew how to drive, they won’t let us have a car. And a cab from here to there, well that’s just…”</p><p> </p><p>“Lean forward a second?” Lucas told Maya. When she did, he reached behind her and gave Zay a smack in the shoulder. He yelped, stopping mid-stream his list of ways in which they were all screwed. Lucas pulled his arm away, and Maya sat back, looking caught halfway between hearing what Zay was saying and wanting to laugh at what Lucas had done.</p><p> </p><p>“Not giving up,” he told her. She looked at him, and he nodded firmly. “Still in this?” he asked. Maya turned to look at Zay. He shrugged. She turned to Lucas again, took a breath and nodded. “Alright.” He would find a way. If a way existed, he would get there.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0075"><h2>75. Their Road to Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The minutes were not dragging by. If anything, they were speeding along. Before they knew it, ten, and then fifteen had gone by, a half an hour… and they had nothing more than they did before. They were still in Austin, and it didn’t look as though that would be changing anytime soon. Lucas had been looking at Maya, every time he realized another chunk of time had disappeared on them. He thought he would find her growing discouraged, as it sank in that they may be stuck, their great escape extinguished.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, he found a surprising sort of serenity had taken on to her face. She looked far away; he could guess where. After months of wanting it, she was going to get there.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he spoke up when that half hour had gone by. “So, what are we going to do when we get there? I’ve never been to New York,” he reminded her. She tossed a smirk his way.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well you don’t need to worry about that. As it happens, I know it very well. You boys are going to have an excellent guide.” Of course, the tables would be turned. They would be in her territory now. “I guess it depends on what time we get there. New York in the morning and at night, so not the same thing. I hope we arrive in the morning. That’s <em>my</em> favorite. Just walking around, that’s all I need. And then, I go and find Riley,” she smiled. “And I go and find Farkle. And then… I don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>She sat quietly again, thinking. Lucas looked at Zay. He was off in his own head, maybe imagining what she was telling them. It all sounded great, it did. But he was also seeing her as she listed it off, and as she stopped. She was fading fast; the sleepless nights were catching up to her, but it was more than that.</p><p> </p><p>They were still here, but his question had sent her there, if only in mind. And when she’d gotten there, and she’d ‘done’ what she’d wanted to do, she had been brought to the edge where suddenly she had to ask herself… Now what? What was she going to do once she’d seen her city and her friends again?</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait to meet them,” he told her, and she smiled again, before giving a good yawn.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay,” she made herself sit up, taking a breath, trying to wake herself back up.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you can get some sleep. When we think of something, we’ll wake you,” he promised. She shook her head; she was determined to stay awake. Lucas turned to Zay, hoping he had an idea.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’m starving. I’ll go see about getting us something… probably some sugar… or caffeine,” he stood and wandered off. The space he had liberated was long enough so that she could just lie down, get some rest, if she would only allow herself to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas remained quiet. The only sounds around them were ambient. Voices passing by, over the PA… the hum of a train nearby, suitcases…</p><p> </p><p>Turning his eyes without moving his head, he could see her, hugging her bag near, eyelids slipping, head nodding off. When he sensed she was as good as gone, he maneuvered a reach to her bag, pulling it and her arms with it until she resettled with it, laying her head on the bag. She was asleep.</p><p> </p><p>When Zay came back, with chocolate and chips, Lucas motioned for him to stay quiet. Together they moved Maya up until she was laid out on the bench, her bag as pillow. Lucas sat by her head, while Zay came and sat next to him, passing him a chocolate bar. Lucas motioned for him to pass a second, too. He stuck this one in his pocket, for when she’d wake up.</p><p> </p><p>As he ate, he watched her, every so often, making sure she was okay. They might not have been able to stay there as long as it would take for Maya to be fully rested, but it would do her good, and that was good enough. He took off his jacket, draped it over her like a blanket, as much as it could go.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not going to New York, are we?” Zay asked him.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas sighed, looking around. There was no way that not one of their parents had realized they were gone by now. They would start to call others, and then it would be known that the three of them had disappeared. They were sitting ducks, waiting to be found.</p><p> </p><p>He looked down at Maya, sleeping soundly. He hoped she was where she needed to be in those dreams. He had tried to make them real for her, but they weren’t meant to be.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0076"><h2>76. Their Road to Safety</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The plan had changed, not because they wanted it to but because it had to. Their mad scheme for an escape to New York had been cut off by the demands of reality, and the limitations of their age. They knew now that they wouldn’t be leaving Austin that night, much less Texas. He knew it, and Zay knew it, and Maya… Maya slept, and she was better off that way for now. The only place they would be going would have to be home, and this was where the problems began. The plan was now gone from “how do we get to New York” to “how are we going to explain this one?”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had been and still was ready and willing to accept the consequences. The way he saw it, he had been acting in order to atone for his mistake, to mend what he’d broken. He hoped that his parents would understand, he truly did, but he was also ready to accept that they might not. He tried not to think about what his punishment might be, not right now, while he didn’t have to face it yet.</p><p> </p><p>Zay was concerned about how he would fare, too. Lucas knew he wasn’t playing off the same cards, that he didn’t have past behavior leading to a suspension from school hanging over his head, but it wasn’t going to save him completely. It may have been Zay’s choice to go along with them – under the threat of punishment from a near ninety-five-year-old woman – but Lucas didn’t plan to let him go down for it any more than he had been willing to have him or the rest of their friends getting blamed by Maya over the Denver Mistake. He’d take all of it if he had to.</p><p> </p><p>There were just too many ways this could go wrong if they didn’t have the right story. He wanted Zay to stay out of trouble, he needed the same for Maya, just as he needed to ensure that, when this was all over, he still got to see them. Anything else, he didn’t need to worry over.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s going to be a long day at school tomorrow…” Zay spoke. On reflex, Lucas turned to look at Maya, making sure his voice hadn’t woken her. “Because we’re going to have a <em>long</em> night when we get home, and not a lot of sleep. And we’ll still have to go.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Lucas told him, running his hands over his face and through his hair, as though an idea would suddenly come loose when they’d had absolutely nothing in the… He didn’t even know anymore how long they’d been sitting here. Zay’s phone had died, and he hadn’t even dared to look at his own, thinking of what he’d find there.</p><p> </p><p>“If I get sent to some boarding school in Switzerland, you can have my bicycle,” Zay tapped him on the knee. “I’ll send some better chocolate than this,” he looked at his empty wrapper like it wasn’t his favorite kind.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know how he knew, but a moment later Lucas looked up and over his shoulder, and he saw Katy Hart come shuffling in on the other side of the train station, looking like she’d had Terror with a capital T planted under her skin. She scanned the wide room, and then her eyes found his, and she stopped.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay…” he spoke, watching as Maya’s mother came hurtling along in their direction. Zay looked back and made a sound that could be translated as ‘well here we go.’</p><p> </p><p>“Where is she, where’s my…” Miss Hart started, and at once both boys held a finger to their lips to tell her – ask her – to be quiet. Lucas looked down to the sleeping form at his side as the woman came around the bench and finally saw her. Maya’s mother crouched and knelt next to her, reaching a trembling hand to touch her head.</p><p> </p><p>“I can explain,” Lucas told her, and he’d lost count of how many times he had – and would still have to – said these words in recent times. “I know you told me to go, but I had to do something, and I went and talked to her anyway and then… she cried, she said she wanted to go to New York,” he spoke quickly, though not too quickly for him not to keep ‘home’ out of the equation; she was already hurting enough. “I did my best to comfort her, but after I left, I figured out she might try and…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” her mother cut him off, still looking at Maya. “I saw the message on her phone.”</p><p> </p><p>“We weren’t going to let her go anywhere on her own,” Lucas vowed, and when Katy Hart looked up at him, he knew where Maya had gotten that way of hers to sometimes be so unreadable. Even so, he was just about sure she looked thankful.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom?” The three of them looked down and found Maya was waking up. She looked disoriented for a moment, but she looked at them, and he knew it was coming back to her. She looked at her mother, and she seemed frightened of saying anything, not knowing how she would react. Katy Hart leaned over her daughter and pulled her into her arms.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0077"><h2>77. Their Road to Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her mother hadn’t said much since they’d all piled in to Hildy’s mother’s car, which she’d borrowed to come and find them at the train station. She was almost sure Hildy intended to sell it to them – reasonably so – and after tonight maybe it would be a good thing to have around… even if Maya didn’t see herself attempting to pull off anything else of the sort anytime soon. But there would be plenty of time for them to discuss it all when they got home. First, they had two stops to make. Maya turned to look at Lucas and Zay in the backseat. They looked nervous, too.</p><p> </p><p>When they pulled up to Zay’s house, her mother stopped the car and looked to each one of them in turn. Whatever was going through her mind, she chose to keep it to herself by the looks of it. She told them to stay in the car before telling Zay to follow her. They pulled his bicycle from the trunk – that had been tricky – and they went to his door. Maya and Lucas watched from inside the car. When Zay’s mother and father appeared on the front step, they couldn’t make out what was being said between all of them, but her mother seemed to be doing most of the talking. Three minutes went by and then the three Babineaux went inside while her mother returned.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s one. You’re next,” she told Lucas, and Maya watched him slowly sit back in his seat. She wanted to say something, but she wouldn’t even know what to say, with where they were and why, and with her mother there. But he was looking back at her and she thought to herself that maybe she didn’t need to.</p><p> </p><p>When they stopped at the Friar house, Maya looked at her mother. It wasn’t as though she had not cared what she told Zay’s parents, but after everything that had happened tonight, she needed to know Lucas wouldn’t get thrown under the bus.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, he was just trying to help, please…” she begged. Her mother gave her a look before turning to signal Lucas to follow her. Maya looked back at him as he got out of the car, wondering if it was possible that she’d been as angry at him as she’d been, only hours ago. He gave her a nod: everything will be fine, it said, and she tried to believe it.</p><p> </p><p>She watched on again, this time as her mother escorted Lucas to his door and to his parents. His mother yanked him into her arms like she’d never let him go again. Just as before, Maya watched, unable to hear, as her mother spoke to his father. It went on maybe five minutes, through which her mother motioned back and saw her there a few times, too. Eventually, the Friars returned inside their home with their son, who turned to see her once more before the door came shut and he was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother came back to the car, and as much as Maya knew what it would mean once it was just the two of them, she could see it in the way her mother walked, too. She was bracing herself for what would need to be said between them.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t going to happen on the ride back. This remained silent, and as tired as she’d been before, Maya was wide awake. They pulled up to the house and they got out, went inside. Her mother preceded her, and she went to sit at the kitchen table, which told Maya she was expected to do the same. When she took her seat, she looked at her mother; she was trying to find her words, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me what happened, Maya. All of it, start to finish, make me understand… what made you think this was okay.” Her voice sounded sad, and it sounded angry, but it also sounded like her mother, the one Maya had grown to discover since they’d come to Texas, the one she had been growing closer to. She was still in there, despite everything, and hearing her in there, Maya felt her throat get tight.</p><p> </p><p>But she did as she’d been told. She laid out the whole story, and as much as she would have kept many details to herself before, she didn’t this time. It felt like she owed her that much. She already knew part of it. On Sunday when she had returned home, having been told where they all were, she’d told her mother, so upset as she’d been. And then on Monday, when she’d come back from school, it had been even worse, and she hadn’t said anything really, but she didn’t have to. Her mother had just been there for her.</p><p> </p><p>She told her all of it now, those past three days at school, the sleepless nights, which again her mother had mostly known about by seeing the way she went around. She told her about how she’d been in her room earlier, and Lucas had shown up at her window. She’d let him talk, and as she’d sat there listening to him, it had all sort of become clear to her, how she’d been made to miss her home and her friends so much that it had just blown everything so far out of proportion.</p><p> </p><p>For a moment she hesitated to tell her mother, about the moment when he’d come in through her window and held her to comfort her. She still remembered what it had felt like, the moment when his arms had first wrapped around her, that contact. But then she knew she’d have to do it, like a sign of good faith. So, she did.</p><p> </p><p>She told her mother how she’d expressed that wish, to go… home. And she told her how Lucas had offered himself to go with her, but she’d sent him away, didn’t want him to get in trouble on her account, and then after she’d snuck out, he and Zay had found her. She told her mother how, when she’d been unchanged in her choice, they had chosen to come with her, so she’d be safe, and that they had made it all the way to the station, only to find that their age would hold them back. Her mother, who had patiently listened all along, gave a nod here that seemed to say, ‘thank goodness for that.’</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, just tell me one thing.” She didn’t need to say it.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t do it again, I swear,” she told her, the plain truth. She was quiet for a moment. “When we were out there, at the station, Lucas asked me what we would do once we got to New York. I told him I hoped we’d get there in the morning.” Her mother smiled, recalling.</p><p> </p><p>“You always loved the mornings.” Maya smiled back.</p><p> </p><p>“I told him I wanted to just walk around, that I wanted to go see Riley and Farkle.” She paused, sighing. “It was all I could think about. You could ask me what I wanted to do this weekend here and I could tell you a dozen things off the top of my head. And the sunrise is different here, did you ever notice?”</p><p> </p><p>“Kind of, yeah,” her mother said, still looking at her. Maya looked around at their kitchen, in their little home, in Austin… She turned back to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“For the first time, I think… I’m okay here. Maybe I already knew, I just couldn’t see it. I miss the city, I miss the people, but…” She felt tears again, but not the same ones as before. These ones didn’t hurt. “Home is here. This house, this city… you and me.” She let the words hang in the air, and they felt right.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at her mother, waited for her to say something. She looked like she was about to cry some painless tears, too. She let out a breath, got up, and she placed a kiss atop Maya’s head.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re grounded. One week.” She’d take it.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0078"><h2>78. Their Conversations on a Return</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For having spent a disappointing and confused weekend, followed by three days of gloom and dread, followed by an aborted adventure and a short night’s sleep, they had all greeted Thursday morning with nothing short of complete joy and anticipation. There may have been some nerves in it, too, being that everything that had happened <em>had</em> happened, but when Maya was seen sitting on the front steps of the school as her friends approached, all trace of nervousness disappeared.</p><p> </p><p>Asher and Dylan had been first to arrive, and Dylan had come bounding up those steps like a great fluffy dog eager to see its master after a separation. He dropped to sit next to her with such a smile that she had to laugh, tapping her shoulder to his just as Asher caught up and came to a stop two steps down.</p><p> </p><p>“So how much trouble are you in?” he asked. She gave him a mock glare. “What, I just need to know if we’ll need to spring you from some dark, dark place. I have ways.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t doubt that,” Maya promised. “Don’t worry though, grounded, one week,” she added, and he gave a nod, impressed. “I’m glad we’re talking again. I know I wasn’t…” she started, but the boys waved it off. She didn’t need to explain herself. She knew it now, and she smiled, while Asher went and sat up at Dylan’s side. “Oh, look out…” she spoke as she spotted a small figure zipping up the street.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya!” Nadine came up, practically skipping up to meet them, and she stopped just in front of them, in the split second it took for her to evaluate the situation, in particular the state of the girl she’d called out. When she found her smiling, and meeting her gaze, Nadine had all the information she needed, and she nearly pounced, hugging her friend close.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” Maya laughed, hugging her back as much in a way to reciprocate as to keep the steps from pressing into her back. “Missed you, too,” she told her.</p><p> </p><p>“What happened last night?” Nadine asked as she pulled back, sitting at Maya’s side. “I mean… if you want to say. If you don’t want to, that’s fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s okay,” Maya told her. She told them the story as much as she could. She skimmed over what came after the boys were dropped off, but the rest was in great part explained. It became clear before long that she, like them, was eager and willing to put the incident in the past and just move on. All they had to do now was to get through this week, or she did. She still didn’t know how Lucas or Zay had fared when they’d had to talk to <em>their</em> parents.</p><p> </p><p>They arrived together, and Maya took it as a good sign that they were coming up from the bus stop’s path and weren’t being dropped off by one parent or another. They looked just a little tired, and that was to be expected but it was really as bad as it got. When they came up the steps, Maya stood.</p><p> </p><p>“How’d it go? What did they say? Are you guys…”</p><p> </p><p>“Grounded,” Lucas told her. “One week, no allowance for a month.” He looked okay with that, and she breathed.</p><p> </p><p>“Same here, except for the allowance. They took my bike instead,” Zay added, and he looked like they’d taken a piece of him away. “They’ll give it back… eventually. It could have been worse, if your mom hadn’t talked to my parents like that,” he revealed, and Lucas nodded as though to say, ‘same here.’</p><p> </p><p>Maya hadn’t asked her mother about what she’d told the parents when she’d brought the boys home the night before, but now she found out she had essentially bailed them out. None of them could say when or why she’d decided to give them the clear, but she did. She told both families how Maya had been having difficulty, missing their old home, and that the boys had stuck by her and protected her, keeping those feelings, completely understandable feelings, from making her do something she’d later see as misguided. She had left out the part about how they had been ready to follow her to New York if not for their ages holding them in place, but otherwise she had told little more than the truth. She knew so easily…</p><p> </p><p>So now here they were, on day one of their grounded week, little more than a slap on the wrist, all things considered. They would still have each other during the day, and after the week they’d just come through, the one ahead of them was nothing.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked at the rest of them as they all stood and headed into school. She thought about what it would have been like to leave them behind, and she knew that as happy as she would have been to see the people she’d left in New York, she would have felt a very similar pang at being torn from these five here. She belonged to all of them, as they did to her, and it was just as she’d told her mother the night before. She’d realized this place was the one that felt like home now, because it was. She walked into school and it wasn’t her new school anymore, only her school, just as Lucas, Zay, Nadine, Asher and Dylan were not her new friends anymore, only her friends, those of Texas, same as she was now, not anywhere else but home.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0079"><h2>79. Their Conversations on Recalling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The weekend was upon them, two days where their being grounded would be as obvious as anything. The last two days, all it had really meant was that they were expected right back home after school. The other half of the group would lament their being unable to get together at this one’s house or another’s, but they dealt with it.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had woken up Saturday morning to find her day had been planned for her. Her mother wanted her to clear out the cabinets in the kitchen, dishes and all. It would take her all morning, but she did it without complaint. In the afternoon, she’d played mannequin to her mother, who was attempting to improve her sewing skills. Maya obliged, and could report she had only been pricked twice by a needle, each followed by many an apology off her mother.</p><p> </p><p>Their evening consisted of her mother the budding seamstress pulling her into a marathon of a wedding dress show. The real entertainment, in Maya’s book, was to listen to her mother’s commentary as one bride or another considered one dress after another.</p><p> </p><p>Finally returned to the quiet of her room, she’d dropped on to her bed with a sigh. What was it about being grounded that made her want to just do… something. When she heard the sound of her mother starting the shower, Maya sat up. She walked quietly to her door, waited to see the bathroom door shut, then went and grabbed her phone. Hopefully, he would still have his… hopefully it would be on vibrate, better yet on silent. She put the call through, moving back to sit but also listening attentively in case her mother was done.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi,” his voice came along, a whisper, and she sat up.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s grounded life treating you?” she asked, right before remembering how he’d been suspended last year and had probably had worse.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine,” he replied. “A lot of chores, you know?” His day, as he told it, had involved yard work instead of dishes and sewing, which she told him all about, down to the wedding dress show. It didn’t feel so much like punishment to her, especially when she would have felt she deserved more than what she was given. It had all been either peaceful or kind of fun.</p><p> </p><p>“The only thing that would have made this better would have been if we’d gotten to hang out, I guess. It’s been so long,” she told him. Not since before the Denver thing. She wasn’t going to bring it up; he didn’t need to be reminded.</p><p> </p><p>“Thursday, after school we can all go to Dylan’s,” he told her, and she nodded to herself. They would be past it, all this mess, Thursday, they would be… right now though…</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, do you think… If it wasn’t for the age thing, do you think we would have gone? To New York?” She’d been asking herself that question since the night they’d tried it. She wasn’t going to, not anymore, but it was still all sort of running through her head, and she kind of couldn’t let it go, a question that needed answering. “I would have done it, I think, not me now but the old me, before we came here. That Maya, I think she would have done anything, even if she had to sneak on board, hitch a ride…” She’d try to tell herself she wouldn’t have but, honestly, she couldn’t be sure. “That would not have ended well. But here, the three of us, if we could have…”</p><p> </p><p>“I would have, and Zay would have, if you had,” he told her, and she’d known this, no doubt really, but that wasn’t what she’d wanted to know. After a moment, he seemed to understand. “Maybe… probably, but…”</p><p> </p><p><em>But you would have regretted it in the end.</em> That was what he wanted to say, but he held back, and that was alright. She’d known this one, too, maybe she would have, if she really thought it through, or wanted to let herself think about what that regret would have done, to everyone.</p><p> </p><p>“One day, we’ll go to New York, all of us, the right way,” she told him, and she meant it. The thought of showing them all the place where she’d come from had been one of the biggest possibilities she wanted to bring to reality. The six of them, with Riley, Farkle, even Smackle. She had been getting to know her, as she would be around when Maya called Farkle.</p><p> </p><p>“We will,” he agreed; he’d been thinking about it, too, and she was glad.</p><p> </p><p>The water had shut off. She hurried to the door, taking a peek. The bathroom door was open. Maya hurried back to her bed.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, I have to go,” she whispered. She hadn’t had her phone taken from her, and she didn’t want to give her mother reason to.</p><p> </p><p>“Tomorrow night,” he told her. “Keep your phone close, okay? I’ll call if I get the chance.” She promised she would, and in turn she told him to give Zay a call, too, if he could. He hadn’t left her hanging and she wouldn’t either. Lucas agreed, and they hung up. Maya put her phone away, grabbed her book for English and started to read, moments before her mother came to check in on her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0080"><h2>80. Their Conversations on Sneaking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He woke on Sunday, unsure what his mother and father had in store for him today. Going off of the day before, he was anticipating a load of busy work. That was his father’s way, more often than not. He believed that being organized, being devoted to a task, seeing it through to the end, was the way to go. And that was the way his punishments would go, not pushing too hard, not letting him let his time go by. Just make yourself useful. Just do the work.</p><p> </p><p>Today, he was sent to go and help his grandfather fix up a few things around the house. All day, that was what he did, one thing after another, as his grandfather ‘supervised,’ which generally meant standing by, telling stories. He came home at dinner, they both did, the four of them eating together.</p><p> </p><p>Already he was looking for a window of opportunity. He had made a promise, and more than that, he had been looking forward to this. All day, as he worked away, he thought about calling his friends, even if for two minutes. With his grandfather here, maybe he’d have a shot. Once he and his parents got talking, they would be busy, and he could call Zay, and Maya, too. He had to be sure. They had been as lenient as he’d ever known them to be and he didn’t want to give them a reason to change their mind. He wouldn’t even have tried it, except… well, he’d made a promise, hadn’t he?</p><p> </p><p>The moment came. It wouldn’t get better than this. He’d been sent to look for something in the basement, that could take a few minutes, right? As soon as he got there, he had his phone, and he called Zay. All the time he’d known him, when he <em>had</em> been grounded, he never knew what to do with himself when he had nothing specific that he had to do. Lucas could imagine him now, staring at the ceiling and way, way out of focus. When his phone would vibrate, he would jump.</p><p> </p><p>“What? What?” he answered the call, and Lucas laughed quietly to himself. He asked how his day and his weekend had gone. “Slowly,” Zay informed him. “I have never been so anxious to go to school. I think that’s their plan right there. They are <em>sneaky</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well, so am I. Hang on,” Lucas told him. Quick as he could, he called Maya, and when she picked up, he connected her into the call.</p><p> </p><p>“Evening, Noble Isaiah,” Maya greeted him.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya Hart,” Zay reacted. “Tell me things, <em>please</em>.” Lucas listened in as Maya did as requested and told them ‘things.’ She told them about her day. Today, she had been tasked with helping her mother organize her old scripts, and her books. They selected some paint colors. After months of white walls, they were finally going to paint the walls, where they wished to see color. Her mother wanted her to ask the two of them and Nadine, Asher and Dylan if they wanted to pitch in, though officially she wasn’t meant to have brought it up until the next day at school, so when they gave their answer – yes, of course – she had to pretend she didn’t know it. The rest of the day had seen more seamstress practice, and a movie. Being grounded was coming off more like mother-daughter bonding… She really didn’t mind it.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I be grounded at your house? That sounds better than what I had,” Zay told her. “I’d take Pappy Joe, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, he’s there now?” Maya asked Lucas. “Say hi for me?” she went on, and it took a moment for him to get that she was joking. He couldn’t say hi, not unless he wanted to explain how she’d known he was there when he wasn’t meant to have called.</p><p> </p><p>“What colors did you pick?” he asked her instead. He looked back up the stairs, wondering if they could hear him up there, until he heard his grandfather’s loud laugh. He was still in the clear, but he couldn’t push his luck either. He finally remembered he’d been sent down here for a reason, and he started looking around, while Maya told him and Zay about the colors for her room.</p><p> </p><p>“I still don’t know what I’ll do with my drawings, if I’ll arrange them some other way or anything. I’ll have to take the shelves down, too. Don’t want to get paint on them or anything.”</p><p> </p><p>They were going to have to hang up soon. Before they did, Lucas heard himself tell them he would call them again the next night. Maya pointed out that it would be Monday, that they would all see each other at school. He knew this, but he wanted to keep doing this anyway. So, they all agreed, and they finally hung up, with promises that they’d see each other in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas sprinted back upstairs his search successful. He sat back with his parents and grandfather, wondering if he looked guilty and hoping he didn’t. As far as he could tell, he was in the clear. So, he carried on with his evening.</p><p> </p><p>Inside, he was glad. Everything was good again. There were still things that they would have to keep in mind moving forward, all of them as friends, but that was more than alright, wasn’t it? He had always felt grateful for the friends he had, in the last year most of all, and now that it was the six of them, he felt it more than ever.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0081"><h2>81. Their Conversations on Problems</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Monday had signalled a much easier way of coping with their grounded week. They were in school, they all got to see their friends… Even so, when Maya, Lucas and Zay had all seen each other, there had been something like a knowing smile, marking how they had plans to call one another that night. It didn’t matter that they would have spent all day with each other, or that they would have had ample opportunity to talk, freely and without fear of repercussion. There was something about their making that call that felt different, important. That night, it would feel like a confessional, a place for honesty and for counsel, as one of them had a problem to share with friends, hoping for whatever advice they might provide.</p><p> </p><p>As they had all headed out of school, three of them went home. Nadine, Asher and Dylan were on their way to the park. They wished the others could come, but that would have to wait. Thursday couldn’t come fast enough. Until then, the grounded half of their group went home, tackling their homework as soon as they could, as they figured it would open up the way for them to be able to have their call later on. Dinners were had, and then the wait began. They’d set an approximate time.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Maya had called Lucas, and he had patched in Zay. Maya had referred to Lucas as Receptionist Howdy, as he’d done so, and she couldn’t say for sure, but she was almost sure she had him smiling. It might have been bad, but she felt this urge to see if she could get either of them laughing, even though it might get them busted. She did her absolute best and she resisted… It was hard, right up until Zay revealed he wanted to talk to the two of them about something.</p><p> </p><p>Things had started to take a downturn between him and Vanessa. They’d been having the occasional date since he’d first asked her out, and it was as casual as anyone could expect out of a couple of fourteen-year-olds. But then right before they’d all gone to Denver, they’d had a bit of a bad one, hadn’t gotten to talk about it before he’d left, and then after they’d come back, well…</p><p> </p><p>Well, Dark Cloud Week had happened, hadn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Maya felt bad. Lucas felt bad. It wasn’t really either of their faults, and Zay believed it, but they still felt it. Maya wondered if her mood, washing over all of them, might have led to this trouble between Zay and the girl he’d pined over for so long. Lucas wondered if his mistake of a decision might have started the chain of events that had made his best friend end up where he was now.</p><p> </p><p>But Zay confessed he saw no one to blame but himself. He told them how he had spent so long even trying to talk to her, but once he’d actually started talking to her, he didn’t completely know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. What if he couldn’t think of what to say because they had nothing <em>to</em> say? What was he supposed to do? Let her go? Keep trying?</p><p> </p><p>He’d laid it all out so fast, knowing the clock was against them, and when he stopped, neither Lucas nor Maya knew what to say for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys?” Zay asked. Had they been in the same room, they would have looked to each other, wondering if the other knew what to say. Eventually, Maya gave it a shot.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… uh… Why did you like her in the first place? Do you still like her that way now? Or better?” Now he was the one to get quiet. Maya listened for her mother while Zay did his thinking.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” he finally said, then after a moment again, “Huh… So, what do I do?”</p><p> </p><p>“Try and talk to her?” Lucas chimed in. “Maybe you’ll figure it out that way. If it doesn’t work out, maybe it wasn’t going to work out.”</p><p> </p><p>They weren’t going to figure it out any more than they had done, not like this. The rest was down to Zay and to Vanessa. Maya had talked to the girl plenty of times by now, though she hadn’t really hung out with her for any prolonged amount of time. She could have done so at any time, Vanessa could. She could have folded herself into their group by now, since she’d been going out with Zay especially, but she never had, and now Maya wondered if that was in any way telling. She didn’t want to bring it up with Zay, but had she done so, she would have found that Lucas shared her view on the subject. And he would have said he’d sort of seen this issue coming a long time ago for that very reason.</p><p> </p><p>They left the conversation there, and before hanging up, they once again vowed to call each other on the next night. They let each other get back to their evenings, though the subject of conversation remained on their minds until they all went to bed. They wondered what Zay would decide to do, Zay himself included. They wondered what the others might have had to say on the subject, but they had a feeling it would have all ended up in much the same place. They all wanted to help their friend, but it couldn’t be anyone’s choice but his own.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0082"><h2>82. Their Conversations on Close Calls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tuesday had started about as loaded as any of them had seen since… well, Monday of the week before. But this was something else. Maya had been on the steps before all of them, as usual, and four of her friends had found their way to her before ‘the show’ began. Nadine had spotted Zay and Vanessa and pointed them out, still far up the street. They looked to be in deep conversation, at first. And then Vanessa had stopped. Zay, oblivious, had continued a few steps before seeing she wasn’t there anymore. He’d stopped, turned, and gone back to her. They’d talked again, and then Vanessa had started walking with a pace that felt a lot like she was trying to lose him. Zay trailed after her for a while, but then he stopped. They all watched as she passed by them, not meeting their eye. Lucas had hurried off after Zay then, bringing him the rest of the way and confirming they had broken up. He said he was okay, but he looked like a lost puppy for most of the day. When they all went home, Lucas and Maya were anxious for their call, if only to see how Zay was doing.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, it’s alright,” he said, just as he’d done earlier, and they didn’t believe him any more now than they did before. “Lucas, you say something now,” he decided, and he wasn’t sure what Zay meant until he went on, “Well I told you something yesterday, now you have to say something, too.”</p><p> </p><p>Silence set in, as Maya and Zay waited for him to find ‘a thing.’ There was a tense moment, too, when they both heard a strange noise and then nothing for a few seconds, and… Mr. Friar’s voice. It was muffled, as was Lucas’ voice, but they heard it and they understood the noise had been Lucas, hiding his phone. They stood so silently, as though it was all three of them trying not to get caught, until they heard Mr. Friar leave. It was almost a minute before…</p><p> </p><p>“I’m back,” he said, then, “Did I ever tell you I almost moved? To New York?” Maya had heard this, and it had felt like a shock to the system. Lucas, in New York, and her in Austin, that would have been…</p><p> </p><p>“When was that?” she had to ask.</p><p> </p><p>“Last summer, before I found out I could come back to school. My dad was going to move us out there if they didn’t take me back, so when they did, that all just kind of… fell through. They were already looking at houses, and schools…”</p><p> </p><p>“Well thank goodness they took you back,” Zay told him. “Couldn’t even imagine being out here without <em>your</em> tall… face.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya was not saying anything. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Lucas had said, what it might have meant for her, because hadn’t he started it all for her here? He had been her guide, had brought her into his group, and since then there had been just… so much. Take him away and it all kind of fell apart. She knew Zay had first been meant to be her guide, and he would likely have been anyway, so she would still have been in that group, probably. But she had a unique bond to each of those five, and the one she had with Lucas, if it hadn’t existed… She didn’t have it in her to imagine her life without that bond, what <em>that</em> Maya would have grown into.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya? Are you still there?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” she’d blinked. Had they been talking? What had she missed? “I just… I thought I heard my mom. It’s fine, I’m back. You in New York, huh? That would have been something, definitely.”</p><p> </p><p>“He never told us before, not even me,” Zay informed her. “You didn’t, did you?” he checked, and Lucas told him that no, he hadn’t told the others either, but now that he’d told the two of them, he probably would, or he’d feel bad to have it come out any other way. Maya could almost feel him looking at her as he said this, and she nodded to herself.</p><p> </p><p>They’d had three moments of nearly being caught after this, one each, one right after the other, first Maya, then Zay, and then Lucas again. It got to the point where they started to grow genuinely paranoid, wondering if their parents all knew and were coordinating these near misses just to catch them… or mess with them, more likely. After the third though, they figured it was probably time that they said goodbye again for the night.</p><p> </p><p>“One more night,” Zay reminded them before they hung up. “Do we dress fancy or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re grounded, Zay, not going to prom,” Maya told him with a laugh. “Besides, why would we dress up for last day of being grounded? Wouldn’t that be something you did <em>after</em> it was over? Not that we would, or… Why am I even… Alright, good night, guys.”</p><p> </p><p>She’d hung up after that, but as with the night before she’d still be thinking about what they’d talked about, tonight more than before. The thought of Lucas in New York still wouldn’t leave her alone. In her dreams, she imagined it… The Lone Ranger, walking down the halls of John Quincy Adams… It was at once funny and curious.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0083"><h2>83. Their Conversations on Bonds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wednesday morning, it seemed all three of them had the same idea for a joke. Lucas arrived, anxious to see Maya and Zay and the look on their faces when they saw him come up with a tie around his neck, hair as neat as though his mother had insisted on it, the way she did on fancy occasions; that was what Zay had said this was, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Only when he saw Maya far off on those steps, he saw he hadn’t been the only one, and the closer he came, he found what <em>she</em> had done to note the end of their grounded week. He came to a stop at the bottom of the steps and she stood up, smirking when she noticed his tie and his hair, while he looked up and saw what she’d done. She’d done up her hair, too, and for only having seen the odd ponytail in gym class or while playing basketball with the rest of them, it was a striking change, only made more so when it was coupled to the simple dress she’d put on.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, you win,” he declared as he joined her, and she gave his tie an approving tug.</p><p> </p><p>“But wait, there’s more,” she told him, inviting him to sit.</p><p> </p><p>That night, as they would await their call window, all three of them would still be thinking about that morning when they’d shown up at school. Maya didn’t know what had been better, after Lucas had come along, seeing Zay come up in his Sunday best like he couldn’t wait to blow them away only to find out they’d done the same, or the look on <em>both</em> those guys’ faces when Asher, Dylan and Nadine came along. Maya had recruited them into her play, and they had answered the call as well as anyone could have done. They’d been something, the six of them…</p><p> </p><p>“Why’d you do that?” She had only just been connected to the call when Zay had greeted her with this, sounding… confused?</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Zay, do what?” she chuckled, but he didn’t reply, not for a while, though she – and Lucas – could hear what seemed like him trying to say the words and failing at every step.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing. Never mind, I… Hey, your turn now, you have to say something,” he challenged her, and Lucas chimed in; he was curious to hear what she might have to say.</p><p> </p><p>She looked down to her lap, to her sketch book. She had been sitting in her bay window, waiting for the call, and she’d started to draw. She was still working at it, and already she had plans for her next one. That one would have the six of them, walking down the school halls like it was some special occasion instead of any old Wednesday, but for now, the piece she worked on was devoted to her grounded crew, each of them in their own space, connected by a call. What else could she say?</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve had a great week,” she told them. “Really not what I would have ever thought I’d be saying when I was grounded the whole time, but I’m gonna miss this,” she told them. “It’s been fun, and it also helped… It helped me a lot. Last week was so… messed up, and I didn’t know if we could really go back like nothing ever happened, but we did, sometimes I think it’s even better.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad, too,” Lucas told her, and she smirked to herself, adding details to the pencil Lucas on her page. She almost added a tie on him, but she waited; that was for the other page.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t stopped thinking about the look on his face when he’d come to join her, and those few minutes they had waited for the others to arrive… As much as she would joke around about his tie and his hair, he couldn’t say a word about her own contribution to the play, couldn’t seem to come up with one, which had only served to amuse her even more.</p><p> </p><p>“So, this is it then, right?” Zay asked them. “No more being grounded, no more sneaking?” He almost sounded disappointed.</p><p> </p><p>“Got things to say, Zay, to… confess?” Maya asked him, curious but also sympathetic. Hadn’t they always been so attentive to <em>her</em>? Besides, she had a feeling she knew what was coming over him. The last few days had already turned several tables on him, and now one more hadn’t so much been turned as it had been flipped, and his heart hadn’t found a way to settle yet.</p><p> </p><p>“What? Me? No, I…” he cleared his throat, tried to sound in control. “Oh, hey, someone’s coming, gotta go, see you in school!” He hung up, leaving Maya and Lucas on a two-way call.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, what was that about?” Lucas asked her. She bit back the urge to laugh. It wasn’t about keeping secrets, but there was such a thing as <em>not</em> blurting out some things. When that something was ‘Zay’s freaking out because he saw Nadine in a dress today and it did something to him, so now he doesn’t know what it means or what to do about it,’ then she really, <em>really</em> couldn’t go and tell anyone, even if that someone was Lucas. It was a good thing they wouldn’t be grounded anymore.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0084"><h2>84. Their Conversations on Reuniting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How a week could have gone by since the morning after they had made a run for New York, she really could not say. But they were here, and they were free, and after school they would head to Dylan’s house to play and hang out. It was about as excited as they’d been in a long time… Most of them. One of them was curious, and another… another was just lost in a world of unfamiliar thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had hoped to get a moment with Zay alone before the others showed up, only by the time she saw him coming, everyone else was already there, sat with her, chatting away. He looked almost as distracted as he did two days ago, like he would just wander right past school if none of them did anything about it.</p><p> </p><p>“I got him, I got him,” she sprinted down the steps and ran after him, stopping him by the shoulders. “Alright, that’s it, come on, buddy, hey…” she gave him a smile and a nod. “Don’t make me put a bell on you, Isaiah Babineaux… or a leash. Just keep it together, alright? We’ll figure this all out later, I promise,” she told him, leading him to the steps and their friends. “Just start acting like a human being again, unless you want them to ask what’s up with you, okay, go,” she tapped him on the back, and she watched with pride and amazement as Zay did as he was told, like he’d flipped a switch.</p><p> </p><p>“We better not get a pop quiz today,” he declared. “Break my ‘free man’ mood.”</p><p> </p><p>“Poor Tall Z, they can’t get <em>you</em> down, you’ve got us… wonderful people,” Nadine assured him with a winning grin. Maya turned back to Zay in a snap, watched him freeze up all over again, and if she had any doubt that she’d had him pegged right the night before, it was gone now. “Don’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>Whether or not he was actually getting something for Nadine, she couldn’t say. Maybe it was the whole Vanessa thing. Maybe it was the dress that had thrown him and nothing else. Maybe it was any number of things that would all end the same way, with him snapping out of it. Or maybe he wouldn’t, maybe it was real, in which case the trouble was only just starting for him.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, yes, real wonderful, very nice,” Zay nodded, his gaze flitting about like it refused to land on Nadine for fear of what he’d say or do. It was going to be a long day.</p><p> </p><p>All through their classes, Maya would sneak looks over her shoulder every once in a while, to see how Zay was doing. It took until second period for Lucas to happen to turn at the same time she did and catch her looking. He asked what was going on, and she gave him a silent look she hoped would boil down to ‘can’t tell, it’s a secret’ in a way he would get was necessary. He seemed to do that, although she knew he’d be curious now, and of course it was just after lunch time that he learned not to look at her but at Zay, and in doing so he followed his best friend’s line of sight to the girl who sat next to him. When he straightened in his seat, Maya knew he knew.</p><p> </p><p>His sudden move had caught Nadine’s attention, in periphery, it had to, because she turned to Lucas. Afraid she’d turn any further, Maya’s foot shot out, kicking at Lucas’ chair. Movement behind her indicated Zay had been startled, too, so whatever he’d been looking at, he wasn’t doing it anymore. Nadine looked at Maya, confused. <em>Lucas</em> looked at Maya, with more questions than his eyes knew to do with. Maya’s look, in return, was clear: Be quiet.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to question her between classes, but she dodged it. She only wanted to get through the day and make it to the Orlandos’ for their back-to-normal game, though she was now starting to see maybe that wouldn’t be possible anymore, not the normal part anyway. When they briefly ended up on their own in front of school, waiting for the others, she figured he would ask, and maybe she’d have to say something, but she’d choose what.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s going on with Zay and Nadine?” he asked her. She gave him a look. “Maya, I know you know something.” She dragged her finger across her lips: Sealed. “Come on… Grounded privilege?” he tried, and after a beat, she let her hand down. She had to give him that, right?</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, okay? I haven’t really talked to him about it yet. All I can piece together is her having on a dress yesterday might have affected him in some way, but that happens all the time, doesn’t it?” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah… sure,” he replied after a second.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyway, until he says anything, <em>we</em> can’t. At least now there’s two of us making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid because he’s not all there.” Lucas gave her a nod; he was with her.</p><p> </p><p>They’d all gone to the Orlando house, and after a while they’d sort of forgotten about Zay’s entire situation. It <em>had</em> been a long time since they had all six of them been there together, and it felt good to be there again. Teams were drafted up, and as tended to be the way, it would be Lucas and Zay versus Asher and Dylan, with the girls rotating. This time around, Maya had chosen to match up with Asher and Dylan, for a few reasons. For one, after they had been split all week, this would serve to mix them back up a bit. And for another, she figured having Nadine on his team would be easier for Zay than to have to face off against her. It seemed to work, at first, but by the end of it, Maya’s team had won out, much to Nadine’s dismay.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what’s up with those two today,” she told Maya, nodding her head to Zay and Lucas later on, as they still sat out in front of Dylan’s house. The boys weren’t talking about anything from what they saw, but they gravitated near one another in a way that seemed to indicate that they did <em>want</em> to say something.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Maya quickly tried to come up with an excuse. “They… they just spent too much time alone at home this week, or… something,” she went on, wondering if there was such a thing as rolling one’s eyes at one’s self. Nadine frowned at her, confused, and Maya did her best to smile in as casual of a way as she could. “You’ve known them longer than I have, you tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I worry for him, I guess,” Nadine shrugged, looking back – Maya checked – toward Zay. “This whole thing with him and Vanessa, I thought he was doing okay, but then today he’s just been off again, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, yeah… yeah… now that you mention it…” Maya went on, wondering if it was too late for her to pick up some acting tips from her mother. “He probably needs more time, yeah?” Nadine shrugged, and Maya couldn’t do much more than agree with the sentiment: what did they even really know at this point, about any of that? She sure had no idea… It was one thing to look at other people, but when it came to herself, that was a whole other madness.</p><p> </p><p>She’d gone to Lucas, pulled him aside as soon as she could. She needed to know how they were going to resolve this situation, him and her. They had to. The other guys seemed for the most part to still have no idea anything was even happening, but sooner or later that would change, wouldn’t it? In the meantime, Zay was still being weird, and if they didn’t get him to snap out of it in <em>any</em> way, then Nadine would start and figure it all out by herself, Maya was sure.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas wanted her to leave it to him, for now. He <em>had</em> known Zay for years, unlike her, so he might have had a better shot. She tended to agree with this, though she made him promise to call her in if he couldn’t manage it. He promised he would.</p><p> </p><p>“Grounded privilege,” she recalled, raising her hand for a high five. He smiled and returned it.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0085"><h2>85. His Home For Movie Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d been having Friday movie nights for weeks now, since the aborted New York escape and the grounded week that had followed. It had been Dylan’s idea, for them to have those nights to look forward to, and they had been precisely that. Now they had another night to look forward to. This week was Lucas’ turn to host.</p><p> </p><p>As they’d moved into April, he’d been made to realize how fast the year had seemed to go by. Only yesterday he had been waiting to hear the fate of his education and maybe his fate as a whole, in Texas. Only yesterday he had been told he could return to his school and his friends. Only yesterday he had made another friend in Maya, who he now regarded as one of his closest friends, as he had done since the beginning, really, only now, as the time had passed, as he’d gotten to know her and be a part of her life, he really knew it. She was meant to be as bonded to his life as Zay had become, and as Asher and Dylan, and as Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>After what the previous year had been for him, and what this year was becoming for him, it wasn’t hard for him to know she’d been central to that. She’d come along, and he’d been her guide. She’d come along, and she’d guided him right back, away from the part of his life he’d needed to put behind him. He’d been doing everything in his power to be as good to her as she’d been to him.</p><p> </p><p>When her mother’s birthday had finally come, he had been right there to see the moment when Maya had been able to present her with the painting that she’d made for her, complete with its frame. Her mother had cried, and Maya had smiled so much that even he had to do the same. He had helped to hang it in their living room; that was his job now by the looks of it, hanging things.</p><p> </p><p>The Friday morning when Mrs. Whitley had told him he wouldn’t be required to see her every week anymore, he’d gone out to the steps knowing Maya would be there. That was always when they’d be the longest on their own, waiting for the others to arrive; he kind of missed those now, though he didn’t miss having to get up early. But that Friday morning he had gone and told her his mandatory sessions were over, and she had congratulated him, yes, but the bigger ‘celebration’ came at lunch, when she made her way to their table with her tray overloaded with extra desserts she distributed around the table.</p><p> </p><p>“What, you think Asher’s the only one with… connections?” she told them with a grin. Asher had given an approving nod, and they had all dug into their desserts; he’d never forget it.</p><p> </p><p>That was just who she was, like he couldn’t be unhappy whenever she was around. That was what she’d brought into his year. By now, he relied on it and on her, but then there was the other side, too… The wild card. She’d get that look in her eyes sometimes and he would immediately wonder what she was up to.</p><p> </p><p>They were all going to meet up in front of school and head over to his house. He was out there now with the girls, waiting for the guys. Maya and Nadine were talking while he kept a lookout for the others; they had a bus to catch. But then he’d looked back at the two of them, he’d looked at <em>her</em>, and the warning alarms had started to flash. The problem going forward was that he couldn’t actually say <em>what</em> she was going to do. He tried to get her attention, get her to say what was going on, but it wasn’t going to happen, no. The most he’d get would be a smirk; she knew he was concerned, and she liked it.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re here, we’re here, let’s go,” Asher called as he came jogging up with Zay and Dylan. Lucas turned to Maya and, as he expected, the sneaky little look had been tucked away into hiding.</p><p> </p><p>So off they went, walking to take the bus back to his house. They were already talking about what movies they were planning to watch. Just as they would alternate hosts each Friday, they would also alternate who got to pick the movies. That didn’t stop the rest of them from attempting to sway the vote.</p><p> </p><p>This week, the choice of movies had fallen to Dylan, which in itself was something of a freebie. He never minded what they got to watch, so if any of his friends really wanted to see something, he would just pick that. They piled on the bus still making pitches.</p><p> </p><p>As they sat, and he watched the rest of them, Lucas tried to figure out what Maya was up to. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Whatever it was, it would have to be about them, and this evening. She wasn’t going to be going around with that look over something that was weeks and months away, would she?</p><p> </p><p>Unless… Oh, maybe, but… But… If it was what he thought, then the night might have been a competition to see what would be more entertaining, the movies or the movie watchers.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0086"><h2>86. His Home For Picking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The one unpredictable outcome of ‘Dylan picks’ days was that, every other time, they would talk on and on about what they’d like to watch, like subjects pleading their case to a king, all the way to whoever’s house was hosting that day. And then they would arrive, and they would look at him to know which of their options he might pick… and he would reveal he’d actually made his own choice in the end, off an idea he’d suddenly had. They would all groan in defeat, while Dylan only smiled, excited for the movies he’d chosen. He’d be so happy that they couldn’t keep their frowns on for very long.</p><p> </p><p>Today had been one of those days. All through the bus ride they had seen one after the other give impassioned arguments in favor of one movie or another. The best ‘performance’ had easily come out of Nadine, who’d wanted them to watch Titanic and spent a solid three minutes impersonating ‘old lady Kate Winslet,’ as she called her, telling Dylan how much he needed to take that trip into the past with her, back to that ship. This had been contested by Asher’s appealing to his and his best friend’s deep, deep love of Ninja Turtles, which was called cheating by the others, including old lady Kate.</p><p> </p><p>The Turtles had been banned from discussion the moment Zay ‘accidentally’ let slip how the four of them had gone out for Halloween when they were eight and nine as each of those Turtles. Not even Nadine had been told about this, a secret they’d meant to take to the grave, so once both she and Maya had heard and started to demand to see pictures, or videos, or both, the movie suggestion had been put well out of contention.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t as though they didn’t look back on that time with any sort of nostalgia, and Lucas certainly did, but it was not the kind that they were looking forward to have come to light and get them teased over by the girls. It was too late now; they still wouldn’t share the pictures, no way.</p><p> </p><p>The two of them represented that a lot to him, Asher and Dylan… Long ago it had only been the two of them, him and Zay. And then those guys had come into their lives and it had changed everything. They wouldn’t change a thing, wouldn’t give up having Nadine come along, and then Maya, but they also wouldn’t throw away those years when it had been just the four of them boys. It had been another atmosphere for sure. Even today, a lot of times when he would look at them, he would remember it so clearly.</p><p> </p><p>These days, they were just as tight together as they’d been in the beginning, Asher and Dylan. There was absolutely no getting in between them, not now, not then. It could seem almost easy to look past them, like the fact that they had each other meant that they were plenty fine on their own.</p><p> </p><p>Today, that could have meant a night of Turtles for all of them, but then there had been Zay’s slip of the tongue, so that was over. For the rest of the way to Lucas’ house, Nadine had looked pleased, assuming this would mean they would be headed Titanic’s way. But they would not. They reached the house, and there Dylan told them he’d just remembered he’d let Lucas borrow a couple movies and he wanted to see those. That had been the end of the debate, much to everyone and old lady Kate’s disappointment.</p><p> </p><p>They were greeted by Lucas’ mother, who of course saw these Friday night gatherings as the means to put her hostess skills to good use. His father would be arriving soon, too, though he tended to disappear into the basement when it’d be all of them being loud in the living room. His mother would disappear, too… eventually. Lucas only hoped it was before Zay or the girls let slip about the Turtles and she started to go off digging for pictures. She would find them in no time if that happened; she was very, very organized that way.</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime, Dylan had gone off on his own to locate the movies, and eventually the others joined him. He finally found them, although he was disappointed to see he had remembered wrong and these were not the movies he’d had in mind. So, after a brief consideration, he’d turned to Nadine, who’d gasped and cheered – dance and all – that they would be watching Titanic after all.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys, I just saw the snacks Mrs. Friar’s got,” Zay informed them, trailing in from the kitchen with a handful of carrot sticks he casually munched on. “This is not going to work.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can go and get snacks,” Lucas offered. “Anyone want to come, too?” he asked. Dylan raised his hand, while Maya merely stepped up. “Okay, won’t be long,” he promised, before they headed out. The store wasn’t too far off on foot.</p><p> </p><p>The way Maya looked back to those who’d stayed behind, he was sure now that he had a part of her scheme figured, the big part. Whatever it was, it had to do with Zay and Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0087"><h2>87. His Home For Snack Run</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’d been keeping his concerns to himself as he and Maya and Dylan had gone walking off to the store. He was already monitoring the exchange between the others, as Maya had gone and started asking Dylan about the Turtles all over again. He would have been the easiest to get to spill out of the four, and Lucas was not looking forward to Dylan telling all about the highs and lows of their Turtle phase… But then they made it to the store, and with the more pressing debate turning from ‘who was which one?’ to ‘jellybeans or sour patch kids?’ his mind drifted back to the whole Z &amp; Z situation.</p><p> </p><p>In the week or two after the incident with the dress, neither he nor Maya had said anything to Zay. They had come to a sort of agreement to wait and see what would happen. Maybe it would pass, and it really was just a phase brought on by the Vanessa situation. It could go away if they just left it alone. So, they did. They left it alone, but they watched.</p><p> </p><p>They watched, as days went by, and as things adjusted. Zay wasn’t so distracted as he had been on that Thursday morning that they were having to stop him from walking right past school, into a wall, or into incoming traffic. But he definitely didn’t have all his focus, and the one who affected those levels was Nadine. She would talk to him, sometimes only so much as react to something, and Zay would get this look on his face like he forgot where he was for a second, or he would bow his head for a moment, taking with it a smile that would spend itself in the time before he looked back up.</p><p> </p><p>One week turned into two, and three, and it was still happening. It didn’t even feel the same as when he’d been hung up on Vanessa. He couldn’t even look at her so much as talk to her, and with Nadine it was anything but. He still talked with her, sat by her, and he was fine. Distracted and out of focus, sure, but he was fine. So, what did it mean? Was one reaction better than the other? Was one stronger? Which one?</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Lucas had gone and pulled Zay aside one day, and he’d just asked him, point blank. What was happening with him and Nadine? Zay had evaded the question, at first, but Lucas had known him long enough to know to just stand and wait, and soon enough he would spill; and he did.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, man,” he’d said, with the frustration and the relief of someone who’d been stuck having to ask himself the same question, with no one to answer. “I can’t get… get her out of my head, okay? And… it doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean it’s <em>Nadine</em>, she’s our friend, she’s one of us, it’d be like one of us getting caught up with Maya, you know?” Lucas had only given him a half of a nod, and even if he’d known what to say, it wouldn’t have mattered, because Zay had just carried on. “But Nadine, she’s been with us for almost three years now, we were kids, and she’s always been… <em>her</em>, that’s it. Only now I look at her and… she’s pretty, she’s so… And it’s not just that, I mean I’m not shallow or anything, alright? She’s the best of us at basketball, she’s tiny but she kills it. And she works hard, and she’s great with her sisters, and…” he stopped and made a move that seemed to translate into ‘am I really feeling what I think I’m feeling?’</p><p> </p><p>Lucas hadn’t brought it up again, and he hadn’t told anyone, not even Maya. But it had been weeks since that day, and Zay was still right up there with Nadine, not saying a word but acting the same. It was a wonder no one had caught on, or at least he’d thought no one had, but now… now Maya was circling, and he was concerned that it might…</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Huckleberry,” he heard, a second before a pack of candy tapped him on the head and he turned to find Maya standing there, arm still raised. “Are we missing anything or what?” she asked. He looked past her, to Dylan standing just behind her, arms loaded.</p><p> </p><p>“My mother’s never going to let that much junk into the house… her words, not mine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, she doesn’t have to see, does she?” Maya pointed out, to which Dylan gave a nod. “Come on, it’s a big night,” she reminded him, and he gave her a look, wondering again what she had in store. “Titanic?” she tapped him with the box again, and he breathed out, nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Long movie, right,” he spoke, and she gave a look of her own, that said ‘why are you being weird?’ He carried on without a word, and they went to pay.</p><p> </p><p>The loot was stuffed into Maya’s bag, save for a couple of items, ‘for show.’ They started back for his house as he continued to let all his thoughts whirl around in confusion. What was he supposed to do? Maybe he had it wrong, maybe whatever he’d seen in Maya’s eyes wasn’t about Zay and Nadine. All he knew was that, if that was the case, then asking her if she was planning to do something about them and she really didn’t know, then he would be letting her in on it… and he couldn’t do that. They had made it through all these Friday nights, and they would make it through this one, too. He hoped so… oh, he really hoped so.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0088"><h2>88. His Home For Scheming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They came through the door and immediately heard… singing. They followed the voice, a jolly rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” which Nadine gave, half singing and laughing, as she wheeled a submissive but barely contained Zay’s arms about, in time to the music, inexistent as it was, while Asher sat by and looked as amused as he was glad he hadn’t been the one made to do this.</p><p> </p><p>The ‘loot’ would wait hidden in Maya’s bag until they started the movie, which wouldn’t be until after dinner. Finally, they had made their way into the living room. As usual, half of them would sit on the couch, the other half on the ground, and Lucas watched, with some apprehension, as Maya looked to be fixing up who sat where. Before they knew it, she had gotten both Zay and Nadine on the couch, with her at their side, while the other three boys, himself included, were left to take the ground.</p><p> </p><p>He gave her a look as he went and sat down. He wouldn’t be able to see what was going on with the three on the couch, not without constantly turning around, and what would that look like? She only gave a smile, while he tried to swallow down his concerns. The best he could do was to lean back, putting his back against the length of the couch’s arm rest. Out of the corner of his eye, he would just about see what was happening with Zay and Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>The side effect to this was that he now had Maya’s leg right at his shoulder, and as it dangled it would hit him, again, and again, which kept him even more minded to what may have been happening behind him. Then right around when the movie got to the point where they went into the past, the dangling foot came and perched itself on his shoulder. He looked back at her, and he saw a few things.</p><p> </p><p>The first was that Maya didn’t seem to have realized what she’d done, which went on to reassure him that maybe she really wasn’t going to say or do anything about their friends. But then he could see <em>them</em>, too, Zay and Nadine, sitting side by side, and she would turn to him and speak either as low as possible or without any sound at all, reciting what Lucas recognized as the dialogue from the movie. Zay might have looked like he was going out of his mind if anyone did that to him in the middle of a movie, even if they had all seen it, which they had. But he didn’t. He just carried on, let her do it, with a look back at her every so often.</p><p> </p><p>He felt a pressure at his shoulder, and he looked back to find that now Maya <em>was</em> looking back at him. She pointed to the TV, then brought her finger to her lips, which he combined into as clear of a message as he could get: turn back around and be quiet. He replied with a look to her foot on his shoulder: and this? She smiled and let herself sink into the couch, foot unmoved: yeah, I’m good, thanks, Huckleberry… He guessed, anyway. So, he turned back around, and he was quiet.</p><p> </p><p>So, was this all? That was her plan? Just let them sit next to each other and do nothing? It was definitely working for Zay, but then of course it would. Meanwhile, Nadine remained oblivious, and that was kind of what had made him want to keep Maya from pulling anything like this. Of course, Zay would be feeling something, he already was. But now to get him started on that climb when Nadine was not anywhere near? He would get up there, she wouldn’t be there with him, and he would have to get back down, somehow. He didn’t want that for him, any more than he wanted it to come and make things awkward within the group.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas,” the whisper came at his ear and he jumped so much he nearly headbutted Maya, who pulled back just in time. He turned to her, and she nodded to just outside the living room, where his mother stood, oblivious to the kids, absently watching the movie where she stood.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, she does that,” he whispered. “She’ll leave when the boat starts to sink, she says she gets too emotional.” Maya bit back a laugh and he smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s about to get really awkward,” she nodded back to the screen, where the young Jack and Rose were about to get good and intimate. Right on cue, his mother made the slightest sound, and Lucas was now the one sinking into the ground, less to get comfortable and more to help himself disappear as the others noticed she was back there and quietly laughed. Maya gave him a light ‘there there’ pat of the foot, and he signalled his thanks, waiting anxiously for both the scene to be over and for the boat to hit that iceberg already so his mother would go on her way.</p><p> </p><p>They finished the movie, and as soon as it was done Nadine had gone off to the bathroom, followed by Dylan, then Asher. They were considering a second movie, and while this was happening, Lucas got up, and he looked to Maya, tipping his head: come with me. She got up, and he led her into the kitchen. They needed to talk about this plan of hers before it was too late.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0089"><h2>89. His Home For Pondering</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Wait, I need to see what’s happening back there,” she told him as they went off, and he almost had to reach and pull her so she wouldn’t just go back. “Relax, Lucas, I know what I’m doing, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure you do,” he told her. “What do you think’s going to happen out there? You’re making him think that something’s going to happen. He’s going to be disappointed, and then that’ll be the end. Things will go bad, and we’re going to lose each other.” She stared at him for a while, and he wished he knew what was going through her mind, especially as she took a step toward him. “What are you…” he started to ask, just as her hand swatted up to smack him. “Ow! Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve been holding out on me, you talked to him, didn’t you? You talked to Zay, about Nadine. What did he say? Tell me,” she insisted. When he wouldn’t speak, she reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and brought him near until he was looking her right in the eye. He was at a loss for words. “Lucas? Tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>“He likes her, alright? Still does, not a fluke. He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know what to do about it, so he doesn’t say anything. Alright?” he asked. He had spoken fast and low, dragged into the spotlight as it were. She considered this a moment, and then she smiled, letting go of him, quietly fixing the parts of his shirt she had messed up. “So, please, whatever you’re trying to do, let it go. I don’t think you want him getting hurt any more than I do.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, never, wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him, then, “Just what do you think I’m trying to do here?” she asked. He honestly had no idea, that is he felt he did, but now he was getting this feeling like he’d had it wrong. “I don’t even have to <em>do</em> anything, that’s the best part. I’m just… creating an opportunity,” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“An opportunity?” he frowned. “But Nadine, she doesn’t…” Maya looked at him like she wanted to pat him on the head.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, she told me you guys were a bit hopeless when it came to girls; I’m definitely starting to see it now,” she told him with a grin. He still didn’t see what she was getting at, but she was looking at him like she would quietly wait until he put the pieces together. An opportunity… His head whipped back toward the living room so fast he might have had whiplash. “There it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, but…” he shook his head, thinking back, seeking some proof, one way or the other, that Nadine might have shown herself feeling for Zay as he felt for her, but he wasn’t seeing it. “Are you sure?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, she told me, ‘in no uncertain terms’ as they say. So, yeah, I’m sure. The only reason I’m telling <em>you</em> is because I know you won’t tell, obviously, and you did just tell me about <em>him</em>, so I guess we’re even.”</p><p> </p><p>“When was it? With the suit?” he asked, guessing she might have had the same effect he had.</p><p> </p><p>“The first sleepover, at my house? All you guys were down in the basement, so it was just me and her in my room, and she told me. I won’t go into details, but this is where we are. She likes him, he likes her, they just need to say <em>something</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>He’d already been trying to process the possibility that Nadine actually liked Zay, too, but now to learn it went back this far, it was life changing; he’d never realized, and it had been in front of him the whole time. What else had he missed?</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, hey,” Maya tapped his arm and he looked at her. “So now that you know, just trust me, yeah? I’m not in any hurry to push them either. Just… a nudge.”</p><p> </p><p>They moved to where they could just see into the living room, both of them. They could see the others in there, arguing their case to Dylan once again for this second movie. Lucas looked at Zay, at Nadine. He really wouldn’t have known, and it blew his mind a bit… a lot. Maybe now that he knew, he could sort of see it. On Zay it was clear, same as it had always been, but her…</p><p> </p><p>Sure, he’d known her much less than he knew Zay, and up until Maya she’d been his only close female friend, but still… Hadn’t she always been this way with him? Had she just always felt that way for him and it was the only way he’d ever known her? And he’d heard about her crushes over the past three years, on Billy Chapman, on Tess Albertson, on <em>him</em>… She’d never said a thing about Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” he turned back to Maya, and she gave him a nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, Huckleberry,” she told him, in an upbeat but gravelly voice, “Let’s see if we can’t help those two crazy kids make it work.” He laughed, and she did, too, and they turned to go back to the living room, until Lucas found his parents had come into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0090"><h2>90. His Home For Parents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been a while now since the New York incident, and Maya had been around his parents several times since, but even so, there was the smallest hint of uncertainty in him, and no doubt in her, too, whenever they would be there with her. He was always concerned as to what they might say. They had never been mean to her, or put any sort of blame on her, in relations to that day, but even so, he kept imagining them bringing it up, making him tense up. He wasn’t sure why.</p><p> </p><p>The first time they’d seen her after that night, they had been kind to her, hadn’t they? They had treated her as a parent <em>should</em> treat a child, even if it wasn’t theirs. His mother had elevated Maya to levels right up there with Dylan, showing attention and care. She was friends with her mother after all. And his father… He had wanted to know that she was alright, and Lucas had been so unsure that he should ask her this, but Maya had been okay with it. She’d told his father she was better than ever, and he’d been glad to hear it.</p><p> </p><p>So why was he so concerned? They hadn’t talked behind her back, nothing. But he knew his own history, and he knew that as much as Maya’s mother’s words had helped to settle things, what he’d almost done had reinstalled some amount of doubt in his house, and maybe… maybe he was afraid, that they would single <em>her</em> out as the source and attempt to remove her from his life somehow.</p><p> </p><p>All they did now was ask how the night was going. Maya had looked back at him with that same look she had when she pointed out his mother was standing behind them, and he had to stop himself from reaching his hand over her mouth to silence her or something.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s going fine,” Lucas told his parents. “We’re all going to watch another movie actually,” he added with a nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Action, I’m thinking,” Maya added, and he could see his mother’s face scrunch just a bit, telling him they wouldn’t be seeing her roaming by. The smirk on Maya’s face told him that might have been her intention, which in turn made him have to hold in a smile, and he bowed his head briefly to let it pass.</p><p> </p><p>“Just let us know when everyone’s ready to go home,” his father told them both. He would be driving everyone back. They both nodded and were about to turn and return to the others out in the living room when his mother called to Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, your mother showed me the painting that you did when I was over at your house the last time? You did a lovely bit of work right there,” his mother gave a great smile, and Maya thanked her, with a smile which, in her case was as touched as it was apprehensive, and he really couldn’t blame her. What was this even about? “Well I was thinking, I might ask you to do up a little something for us, say, over the summer. Oh, I would pay, of course, for the materials <em>and</em> for your time,” she added. “What do you say?”</p><p> </p><p>They both looked a little shocked, staring back at her. Maya had the look of someone who’d never expected this kind of request and didn’t know what to say, while he just didn’t know how his mother had decided to spring this on her without telling him.</p><p> </p><p>“Take your time, think about it,” his mother told her after the silence had drawn on. “Just let me know, we’ll work something out you and I,” she grinned, patting Maya’s shoulder as she walked by and back to wherever she’d spent the rest of the evening. This left Lucas and Maya with his father.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you and your mother headed up to New York over the summer?” he now asked Maya, who blinked as she turned back to his father. He had that same tone in his voice he’d had the first time he’d seen her after the failed train run.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I… I don’t know yet, we haven’t really talked about it,” Maya told his father. Lucas knew that wasn’t the whole truth. She had told him how she’d been wondering about whether she’d get to go, but she also didn’t dare to bring it up, not yet. It was only April, and she was concerned it would sound like she was still in that head space she’d been in weeks ago and her mother would get worried about her. Beyond that, she <em>did</em> want to go, and if they weren’t going to go, then she didn’t want to have to know about it for the rest of the school year.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll let you get back to your friends then,” his father finally told them, giving a nod to each before heading on his way.</p><p> </p><p>They stood in silence for a moment, before Lucas turned to her as she turned to him, and they both had the same sort of baffled look on their faces, which turned into a chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother wants to <em>pay</em> me, to paint her something? Really?” She’d never even told him about it; Lucas had been as surprised as her. “What are we thinking, family portrait? Are you going to pose? Will there be hats? Boots? Spurs?” she asked as he led her back to the living room.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0091"><h2>91. His Home For Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the night had dragged on, and as much as they had looked forward to a second movie, by halftime they were losing viewers, one by one… Dylan was asleep on the ground, curled into a ball. Asher had been nodding off for a solid ten minutes. Nadine had fallen asleep with her head against the armrest. Zay was awake still, just this side of buzzed on sugar.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had abandoned the couch to go and sit on the floor next to Lucas, once it became clear the rest of them were as good as gone and it was down to them. For a little while they just quietly watched the movie, but then she was being sort of jittery, he could see. She was looking at the others like she wanted to do… something.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s the plan?” he whispered, and she looked back at him, surprised… a little impressed?</p><p> </p><p>“Cowboy wants to prank his poor, unsuspecting friends? Really?” she asked, giving him a suspicious look. He shrugged. Why not? “I don’t know, we could just let them sleep. It’s kind of nice like this. Plus, I’m more concerned for that one,” she pointed back at Zay. “I’m pretty sure he just kept shovelling in the candy to distract himself from… you know who, and now he’s… bursting.”</p><p> </p><p>“More like he’s gonna burst,” he frowned, and Maya cringed before reaching to pull the bag sitting on Zay’s knee. He tried to reach for it, but she pointed her finger at him and informed him that he was cut off. “Maybe we should just get my dad to drive everyone back now,” Lucas told her.</p><p> </p><p>“I want to finish the movie,” she protested.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, then we’ll let them sleep, I guess. What about him?” he asked, looking to Zay again. Maya got up, went and looked at him for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“No way he makes it through,” she estimated. “And if he doesn’t, then neither does your mom’s carpet.” Lucas was <em>not</em> looking forward to that mess, and the speech he’d get from his mother about sugar and candy and so on.</p><p> </p><p>So, he had asked his father if he might drive the others home and come back for Maya after. The movie was bound to be done or near to it by the time he’d made the rounds and returned. When his father agreed, they helped to take the still halfway sleeping Nadine to the car, then Dylan and Asher, and finally Zay up in front where Mr. Friar could keep an eye on him. When the car took off, Lucas took Maya back into the house, where they could continue and finish the movie. He wasn’t sure where she wanted to sit now, but then she’d dashed ahead of him and either dove or rolled on to the couch, taking up the length of it before pointing at the ground near her head, which he took to mean ‘you sit there.’</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he laughed before doing as told. “You’re going to fall asleep just like they did if you stay that way,” he pointed out. “You’ll miss the ending.”</p><p> </p><p>“Am not, will not, now hush,” she told him, nudging his head so he’d look at the screen. He did so, but then, “Don’t let me fall asleep, okay?” He turned back to her, pointed out she was lying on the couch. “But…” she mock pouted.</p><p> </p><p>“Get down here, come on,” he told her. When she shook her head in defiance, he reached for her arms, gave a pull.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, okay!” she laughed, giggled even, rolling off the couch with a thump before pulling herself into a seated position next to him. “There, better?”</p><p> </p><p>“Watch the movie,” he told her. For someone who’d wanted to stay back to finish it, she wasn’t paying so much attention, though she made a show of focusing after this… for a bit.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s my turn to host next week,” she reminded him, and he nodded. He knew, of course. “And it’s <em>your</em> turn to pick the movies. Any ideas yet? I know you’re not as easy to sway as Dylan, but are you taking suggestions?” He shrugged, and she fixed him with a look. “Turtles.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, come on,” he rolled his eyes as she laughed. “We’re not still on this, are we?”</p><p> </p><p>“Which one were you? Just tell me. You know you want to,” she teased, and he tried so hard not to let the smile creep up on him. “Red one? Blue one? Purple…” she started to list off, then paused, as though trying to remember, and he couldn’t say for sure whether she really didn’t know or if she was leading him on just so he’d talk. He almost tried baiting her, matching the wrong mask, or name, or weapon, to see if she’d give herself away, but he didn’t want to fall for any trick, so he followed her lead.</p><p> </p><p>“I was the blue one, like you say, alright? I’m still not showing you any pictures,” he insisted, as though he believed she’d leave it alone. She did, for a while, turning back to the movie, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to have her bring it up again tonight, or on any other day near or far. He was seeing this whole side of her more these days, and as much as he’d protest, as much as he wouldn’t say it in so many words, he didn’t actually mind it… he kind of enjoyed it. “When are you going to ask your mother about New York?” he asked. He could have asked why she hadn’t told his dad what she’d told him, but this felt a better way.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Maybe I won’t, maybe I shouldn’t. She’ll tell me anyway, whether we do or don’t go. It might just be easier not to do the asking.” She really wanted to though, he could see.</p><p> </p><p>“What about your friends though? They could come here,” he pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed, but again he could see how she seemed to resist the subject, like she didn’t want to get her hopes up, one way or the other. He imagined after how much she’d struggled with relocating, finding her way, so being cautious about her long-desired reunion with her old friends might not have been a bad idea.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what should we watch next week?” he asked, then, “Other than… you know what,” he specified. She rolled her eyes, though she smiled, before giving it some thought.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, well next week, my place… your mom gets lured in by romance and drama, gets repelled by action and violence. <em>My</em> mother, oh… She’s lured in by anything, real devoted to her field and all that, so if she gets pulled in there’s really nothing I can do. The only way, I think, for her not to come sniffing, would be to make sure and take some movie with people she can’t stand.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right… like who?” he asked, just as his father came back through the door. The movie had ended without their knowing; it was time for her to go home. She promised him a list of ideas for the next week’s selection, and then she was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas looked around the empty living room for a moment before starting to pick up after them, putting pillows and cushions away, gathering candy wrappers, glasses and all. When his father returned again, he was told Zay had made it all the way to his front door before the sugar caught up to him. And then Maya, on the way back to her house, had asked him about Halloween. Apparently, she had heard about his year as Leonardo (“I knew she knew!”), to which his father had given a laugh, correcting and telling her it had been three years straight of turtles for those boys. Lucas cringed; this wouldn’t go away soon, would it?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0092"><h2>92. Their Year of Firsts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>April had come and gone, and as May seemed eager to do the same, it felt like the subject couldn’t be set aside anymore. Summer was coming. Before they knew it, the school year would be over, and they would have two months of freedom. For Lucas, as much as he had spent this year wanting to move forward, he now found himself looking back.</p><p> </p><p>Last summer had been good, if he looked at the bits and pieces of it, maybe. But then he also had to look at the thing that had clung to it, like a shadow at his heels. Last summer he hadn’t known if he’d get to go back to his school, didn’t know if he’d end up having to maybe move to New York and start over. It hadn’t really felt like summer, especially since he’d already been out of school for half a year, even after he’d been told he’d get to go back. In a way, this was his first summer in two years, and it made him anxious for it to come, for him to spend it with his friends.</p><p> </p><p>That morning, his father had gone off on a business trip. Lucas had woken up early because of it, so when he couldn’t see himself getting back to sleep, he figured he might as well get to school. It wouldn’t be so bad, he’d thought, because Maya would be there. And like that, he’d gotten an idea. He didn’t think she would be there already, so if he hurried, he might catch her at home.</p><p> </p><p>He came up her street and he could see her just stepping out of her house, making him speed up to get to her. She was surprised to see him, which left him time to get over and join her, calling out “Hey!”</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing here?” she asked, smiling. He told her about his father’s trip, how he’d gotten up so early and decided to come and meet her for the ride to school. “I’m shocked it’s taken you this long,” she told him, mimicking his invisible hat tip. “Summer’s getting to you, isn’t it?” They started back up the street together.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe, I guess,” he shrugged. He <em>had</em> been thinking about it more lately, even this morning.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what’s summer like for you guys?” she asked, and for a moment he thought about last year again. He could have told her about it, right here as they walked to go and take the bus, but he didn’t see how it would lead to any kind of conversation he wanted to get into right now, so he didn’t bring it up. Instead he thought about the summers before.</p><p> </p><p>“We used to go to camp, Zay, Asher, Dylan and me, but not anymore.” He didn’t think he would still want to go, but he also thought back to those summers like they were some of the best moments of his life. “I shouldn’t say it, maybe…” he started, which immediately grasped her attention. “One summer, they were… eight, I was nine. Zay, Dylan and me, we played a prank on Asher. To this day, he’ll still get spooked when anyone brings up snakes.” She laughed, the way one did when they almost felt bad for doing it but couldn’t help themselves either.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it, no snakes,” she promised with a firm nod. “And when you’re <em>not</em> howling at the moon deep in the heart of Texas?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, well… nothing special, I guess,” he admitted. “We go to the pool a lot, we… we play at Dylan’s hoop, too, but we do that anyway…” He wanted to make it all sound more exciting for her, but he didn’t see that he was doing that even a little so far. “Two years ago, we did go camping,” he remembered, telling her immediately, then, “I guess that’s a lot like summer camp, but it’s even better, sometimes. Have you ever gone fishing?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I don’t know, you take a guess,” she gave him a look, and he knew he would have expected exactly the answer he got if he’d given it a moment’s thought. “It… might be something… maybe…” she told him, and suddenly, going fishing was now only the latest entry on the list of activities one of them had expressed a desire to do, ‘someday.’ If she stayed over the summer, he thought, maybe… maybe they could try and check some things off that list. That might have made for a good summer, for all of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Asher’s uncle said this year he might get us some time working at the diner, earn up a little money. That goes for you, too, I mean… if you’re here,” he remembered to tell her.</p><p> </p><p>“That’d be great,” Maya said at once, then, “If I’m here,” she repeated as he’d said, and he nodded, the last several seconds hanging on that bit of silence as they reached the bus stop. In his mind, in his heart, deep down, there was that small truth, the one he couldn’t hear loud enough to admit.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want her to go. He wanted her here, the pool, the hoop, camping, fishing, working at the diner, with him and the others.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be good to be done with school for a bit, that’s for sure, yeah?” he asked her. “It went by pretty fast, didn’t it?” She shrugged. “Might have been longer for you… didn’t think about it like that. Sorry…” She shrugged again, with a smile to boost. “Wasn’t all bad, was it?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0093"><h2>93. Their Year of Starts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thinking of the school year that was about to end, it was hard at times for Maya to remember that it was one she had started in New York. It all felt like so long ago now since she’d been there, but at the same time she still remembered it all when she closed her eyes. She remembered the day her mother had told her they were leaving, and her last days in school, with her friends, and then those two days on the road… Then she’d been here, and suddenly her life had been different.</p><p> </p><p>All those months, she’d been trying to find her way to a place where she knew who she was and where she belonged, and she had done that. Maybe she wasn’t that same girl she had left behind in New York, but that was alright, more than. There were parts of herself she had left there and didn’t see herself ever missing, but then there were those other parts, and those she knew left gaps within her that she could never bridge, and she didn’t try to do anything about them. She owned her gaps, and that was not something she would have known herself capable of.</p><p> </p><p>“Wasn’t all bad, was it?” Lucas had asked. Maya had thought it over, and she could see those months rolling through her mind. Highs and lows, none of it escaped, and she knew the answer was that even the lowest lows, in the end, had brought her so many wonderful things in return, even if she never wanted to repeat them.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m happy that I’m here now. I think that pretty much tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it?” she told him, and he nodded. Even so, she considered that first year in Texas. It had been eight months since they’d moved, not twelve, but the end of the school year had a way of making everything so final, didn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>As she waited with Lucas for the bus to arrive, she recounted some highlights of that year, moments both great and small that had marked her and would stay with her. She remembered her first days, meeting him and the others, getting to know them and all the while attempting to find her place… She remembered starting to feel, even though a great part of her almost didn’t want to accept it, as though she was finding that place she so desperately needed.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered, of all things, meeting all the families. His parents, his grandfather, then Zay’s people and Nadine’s, Asher’s, and Dylan’s… Top spot, she would readily admit, would go to the grand and great grandparents in the bunch, his Pappy Joe, and then Zay’s GiGi. She remembered meeting that tiny woman and feeling immediately like she was family, and like she’d want nothing more than to spend more time with her.</p><p> </p><p>And there was school itself, school… It wasn’t like she’d be sad to be on vacation for two months, but then she’d think about the progress she’d made this year and… What if stopping made her revert in some way to how she was before? She wasn’t an all-star pupil or anything, but she was doing well now. The thought of homework had been enough to give her a headache before, but now she just did it, and she got through it, and when she’d get those back, or a test, she’d see the grade and she would feel good. It was impossible to describe the feeling, or to quantify it. She liked school? A little? They’d never believe it, not those who’d only known her old self.</p><p> </p><p>“It was one of the best years of my life,” she admitted, unsure if he could hear the bit of surprise in that statement. She knew it was true though, just like she knew the only thing that would have made it better would have been if those she’d left behind had been here with her, although would it have been better, really? Hadn’t she become this version of herself because she didn’t have them to lean on? Would she have chosen them over this? Maybe she was better off not knowing. <em>That</em> she could hold on to.</p><p> </p><p>Being here, forced to rediscover, reshape who she was, there were so many things for her to be glad and grateful to have. Her school, her friends, no doubt. But if she was going to be honest, and for Lucas that day, she was, if she had to pick the things she was looking back on with the greatest appreciation in that moment, it was her mother, or her relationship with her.</p><p> </p><p>It was almost natural, wasn’t it? They were on their own out here, even if they had people now, friends… They were all either of them had of the world they had left behind, and they were family. For all the difficulties they brought with them like extra boxes they’d shipped over to Texas, they had taken this situation and used it to break at the clutter that had come to stack itself in between them. They had never been so close as they were now.</p><p> </p><p>“Summer kind of has a way of going by so fast for me,” she told him. “I think that was mostly because I didn’t want to go back to school. Now, I don’t know… Maybe it won’t feel the same. Whether I’m here, or… in New York…” She didn’t know what she meant to say after that, and when the seconds had just dragged on, she’d simply stopped trying to think of something. Thinking of summer, only a moment ago, had felt sort of liberating, but now… now there was just this pit in her stomach that she couldn’t explain. It sat there and it weighed her down into silence.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0094"><h2>94. Their Year of Maybes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They climbed into the bus, sat side by side, but neither of them spoke for a while. Lucas heard her talking about summer, and as much as she mentioned the words ‘or in New York,’ all he could imagine in his head was the other part, the one where she said, ‘I’m here.’ At once his quiet, small truth from before had found its voice, and it shouted and hollered within him. He didn’t want her to go. He thought of spending an entire summer, or even a partial one, without her, and it filled him with a sense of loss, of frantic confusion, that shut out any amount of feeling as though he understood his own life anymore.</p><p> </p><p>He could sit here and close his eyes, and he could see it, see a summer where she was here with them. He could imagine countless games played, morning, afternoon, or evening, at one hoop or another, all of them driven to victory. He saw them lounging about, doing little more than to enjoy sunlight, and friends, and freedom. He saw them swimming at the pool, playing around. He saw them at Uncle Nando’s diner, working or just eating. He saw them, as he’d all but promised her, camping under the stars, and fishing, anything they could decide to do. They could go to more museums… She loved those so much.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want Maya to leave. He wanted her to stay, here, with them, with…</p><p> </p><p>The thing he learned that day, about the dangers of a small voice getting louder, was that while it had been quiet, he hadn’t really known what it had been saying all along. And when it got louder it was <em>everything</em> that got louder along with it. And within that rising sound, beyond the simple truth (I don’t want her to leave), there was the less simple truth, the one that told him a different story, that said… Oh, he could barely make himself listen, for what it could mean, but it was not made less clear by being less simple.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want Maya to leave. He wanted her to stay, here… with him.</p><p> </p><p>All those things he’d imagined about the summer coming upon them, of course, he wanted to do those with Zay, too, with Nadine, and Asher and Dylan. But at the heart of it, all he wanted was just to spend it with his new friend at his side. It just didn’t feel right that she could be anywhere but right there along with them.</p><p> </p><p>As true as it was… What could he ever do about it? What would he do, tell Maya he didn’t want her to go to New York? He had no control over it, sure, but even if he did… What kind of a friend would it make him if he said, “I don’t want you to go…”? It would be the same as his saying “I know you’ve been wanting to see your old home again, and your friends, all you’d cared about so much that you’d been willing to run off on your own to get there. I know all that, and I don’t care about that, I only care about you staying here instead.” He could never do that; he actually cared very much. The thought of her going away left him deeply saddened somehow, but he would suffer it if it meant she got to be where she wanted to be.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at her, sitting next to him, and he wished he could tell her, wished there was a way to state his reality without having it come off as something with a motive, to influence what she did, one way or the other. It could have been good for her, couldn’t it? To know that she had left a mark, that her friendship had become this… indispensable part of his reality? He was sure it would, except it wouldn’t come alone, would it? Truth would arrive hand in hand with unspoken truths. So, he had to keep it to himself, to accept that this was how things would be.</p><p> </p><p>And maybe he was worrying for nothing. Maybe Maya wouldn’t leave them at all this summer. Maybe she’d be here with them in Austin, and everything he had been picturing would become reality. Basketball, swimming, camping, fishing, museums… She could be with them… with him. She would be sad, maybe, but if she was, then it would be up to them to help her feel better. It was something they were more than well-versed in doing. Maybe…</p><p> </p><p>Maybe by the time summer came around, and he knew whether she’d be staying or going, it would become easier for him to know how he was supposed to feel about all this, because for now, he only felt stuck and confused.</p><p> </p><p>He looked back forward, hoping he hadn’t come off as though he’d been staring at her. He could almost see her looking back at him now, but he was concerned that if he looked at her again right now it would be too easy for her to read him. She could do that, and she could do it well.</p><p> </p><p>School… He couldn’t forget they were on their way to school. The year wasn’t over, summer was not here yet. For all he knew, by the time it did come, he would be feeling completely different, more informed, and then it wouldn’t all feel so… like this. All he had to do was make it to the end, that was all. He could make it through a few weeks, let the small voice get small again.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0095"><h2>95. Their Year of What Ifs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They climbed into the bus, sat side by side, but neither of them spoke a while. Maya had retreated into silence as she thought about it. Summer, in New York. Any time in New York, in the city where she’d spent the great majority of her life… She had spent so many days and nights wishing she were back there… so many she’d lost count. At Christmas, when she’d thought she might go back and she’d been told they wouldn’t, she’d been heartbroken, no way around it. And then when she’d made her run… almost run… She’d wanted it so much she’d been willing to sacrifice everything, and near as suddenly she’d accepted that she wouldn’t go. She was alright. She had found her peace, in Texas. She wanted to go back, but also… she was scared about what would happen when she did go.</p><p> </p><p>After everything she’d gone through, to come to be at ease with her life in Texas, what if it all came undone when she went back, when New York started to flow through her blood, her lungs, her ears, her eyes, and it would get at ease in there and refuse to leave, same as it had done before. The way she was, now, it stayed in her heart, where it belonged, but it didn’t wander. If it didn’t stay there, what would happen to her? It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go anymore; she still thought of it with great anticipation, with need. But there was still this, the fear inside her, unshakeable…</p><p> </p><p>She wanted to go, she wanted to see her friends, wished for it like a kid calling to… Santa Claus, or something. There was only so long they could be nothing but faces and voices on a screen, or words; she wanted them, flesh and blood, standing before her.</p><p> </p><p>But she knew it might not happen, knew it was all too likely she wouldn’t get to go, or… she’d been telling herself as much all along, just in case. And part of that method was to observe her alternative… summer in Austin, no going back.</p><p> </p><p>It could be good; she’d go so far as to say she was certain it would be a great summer. All her friends and her, doing this and that, whatever they chose to do… it would be fantastic. Zay’s family party near the end of the season, as she’d been told, was something she needed to see. She wanted that job at Asher’s uncle’s diner. She wanted to spend afternoons outside Dylan’s house, playing with all of them. And Nadine and her, they’d been talking about having more time to hang out, just the two of them girls. And Lucas… Lucas…</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him, sitting next to her. Some days it felt like the world had thrown her a line, to have put this boy in her path when she’d been as lost and confused as she’d been. He’d been the first one to really talk to her, to make her feel like more than that. And now here he was, sitting with her. He’d come to her house, to accompany her to school… good little cowboy, good little Huckleberry… She expected no less.</p><p> </p><p>She thought about what summer would be like if she stayed. All those days, weeks, without having to think of school, being able to do whatever they wanted… mostly. They’d go from brief hangouts after school, some weekends, to any time they were free. She knew that with her friends around her, it would be everything she could imagine. She thought about maybe, finally, taking the suggestion she’d been given months ago, to take to the stage at Chubbie’s on their open mic days. She was at ease now, wasn’t she? She’d found her place in Austin, she was happy…</p><p> </p><p>Thanks to him… Thanks to all of them, but thanks to him. How could she ignore it when it was the truth? How could she ignore the truth when it had been growing clearer by the day? In this moment, sitting next to him, being carried in the sway of the bus, with the morning sun shining on them, it felt like the city was telling her… this was all she needed, this and a summer where she wouldn’t be across the country from this boy sitting next to her. She took a breath, she let it out, she looked at him… she smiled. It felt like she couldn’t let it slip away. The bus rode on, and silent as they both were, she wouldn’t have tried to talk.</p><p> </p><p>As the bus neared the school, Maya thought about these last few weeks they had in there. It was still possible she would end up in New York, that she and her friends would be separated and that these weeks would be the last ones they had for a long while. And if that was the case, then she wanted them to have the best times they could. And if they were parted, she wouldn’t let herself fall forgotten. She could call them, same as she’d been doing with Riley and Farkle, she could draw, and send them those images. They knew what those meant to her, they’d know what they were for, like she was sending a piece of herself back to them… like a paper airplane…</p><p> </p><p>The bus stopped, and they climbed down together, started on the walk toward school. After they’d been silent for so long, she couldn’t say where the conversation was meant to go anymore, or if it was still there, but then she kept thinking about the end of the school year, and maybe he was doing the same thing, turning it around in his head, because just as they reached the bottom of the steps, he stopped and looked at her like he’d just had the idea of the century.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to have another sleepover, all of us.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0096"><h2>96. Their Year of Friendship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as he’d said it, he had seen her smile and it pretty much settled the matter. The first sleepover had been big for all of them, it had brought the six of them into a new chapter of their friendship. He thought about the drawing he’d seen on the wall, the one she’d done of all of them sat in the grass. It had been his favorite back then, and even though she had added many more pictures to her collection since the first time he’d seen it, he didn’t know that he’d found one he was more impacted by, except maybe the one she’d given him, which still hung on his wall.</p><p> </p><p>“That’d be great, yeah,” she told him, as though he hadn’t already seen the answer on her face. They climbed up the steps, sat down where they always did as they waited for the others to arrive. “Do you think Nadine’s parents will let her stay over at any house, or are we doing it at my house again?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we could be okay to do it at <em>her</em> house, but there’s her sisters already, and Mrs. Zhu always has this look when there’s all of us, and the little girls, and her and Mr. Zhu, when we have movie night there, like she has a headache. Sleeping over might be too much.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay then, my house it is,” Maya told him with a nod. “We’ll need to think of what to do. If we end up in my mom’s script stash again, she’ll probably try to rope in Zay for lessons or something,” she told him with a smirk, and he chuckled. Their friend hadn’t stuck to Maya’s mother’s aspirations for him for too long after the field trip at the museum.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s got bigger things to deal with anyway,” he pointed, and Maya nodded in agreement. For the last few weeks, since the movie night where Lucas and Maya had let one another in on Zay and Nadine’s respective secrets, they’d been watching this dance continue between the pair, with both of them going about their lives without saying a thing to the other. It wasn’t a big deal to the likes of Asher and Dylan, who knew nothing, but to Maya and to Lucas, it had been like watching a frustrating story unfold and shouting at a screen or a page that couldn’t hear you. Except their friends were very real, making the frustration that much more pressing. Lucas didn’t intend to force the issue, but Maya… who knew? She said she wouldn’t, but he had a feeling that something might eventually set her off. Now their two would-be-lovebirds would spend the night under one roof, even if one of them was in the basement while the other would be up in Maya’s room.</p><p> </p><p>“If either of them says something and I’m in New York when it happens…” she declared, shaking her head before looking at him. “Any chance you’d film it if it did?”</p><p> </p><p>“Wouldn’t that be a little… totally, completely, okay,” he nodded, and she was proud of the look she’d given him and gotten him to autocorrect with; at least she looked like she was. “The way they’re going now, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, and besides it’s only if you go to New York,” he reminded her.</p><p> </p><p>The mention of New York again was quick to pull him back into the thoughts he’d been entertaining as they rode the bus.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Maya?” he started to say before he knew it. She turned to look at him, and he didn’t know what he was meant to say next anymore. He’d almost said it, almost said ‘Please don’t go out there, I want us to spend the summer together.’ He wouldn’t, couldn’t, for the same reasons he’d had before, but he did come close. He was looking at her, and it was the most obvious thing to say and the worst thing he could think to say, all rolled in one.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?” she asked after a few seconds. He had to collect himself; he had to think of something to say to cover for what he’d accidentally started. He looked back ahead for a moment, hoping it would come to him.</p><p> </p><p>“We could… well, we could do a, uh… summer,” he finally spoke, the words coming off to him exactly as they felt, uncertain, apprehensive… By the look on Maya’s face, she wasn’t following either.</p><p> </p><p>“Do a summer?” she repeated.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, like… If you’re not going to be with us for the summer, we could take that sleepover and just… do some of the things we were going to do in actual summer, we could… we could camp out in your backyard,” he told her, the idea coming to him right as he was saying it.</p><p> </p><p>“That might actually be a really good idea,” she told him, and he wondered if he should have been in any way insulted by her choice of words, but then how could he with how happy she looked. “Do you have any tents? What am I saying, of course you do… You do, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I do,” he promised. “And sleeping bags.” He couldn’t believe he’d thought of it, but he had, and it did feel, as she’d said, like a really good idea. They might have done it either way, he decided, whether Maya went or not. Either way, he’d give her a first camping she’d remember.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0097"><h2>97. Their Year of Kinship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya leaned back against the steps, tilting her head until she could see the school behind her, upside down. The great majority of her time in Austin had been spent inside this building. She didn’t know she could feel so attached to a school. With a sigh, she looked back up, blinking and shaking her head to clear any dizziness. She sat forward, frowning to herself as she thought about it all again, summer, two choices like that… It was not a choice. She’d be glad as much as she’d be disappointed.</p><p> </p><p>“Couldn’t you guys just… come to New York with me?” she asked him, giving him a smirk. “We were going to, you, me, Zay… I owe you a trip.”</p><p> </p><p>“Summer in New York,” he thought aloud, and she nodded. “I wish we could.” The tone in his voice said it all. They couldn’t do it, not really, for any number of reasons, and she hadn’t been saying it for real, just simply throwing it out there, in case a miracle had its eyes on a girl and boy on the steps of a Texan middle school. To have it put into words that it wasn’t actually possible, she would have fully expected to be made sad for it, but she wasn’t, and she was sort of lifted by that.</p><p> </p><p>“It’d be pretty great though, wouldn’t it?” she asked him, her smirk relaxed into a smile but otherwise undisturbed from her face. “All of you, and me, and all of them…” she told him, knowing he would know just who she was talking about without elaborating in any way.</p><p> </p><p>“It would,” he agreed, sharing in her smile. “That night, when we were talking about it, when we were at the train station… I really wanted to go, you know?” She nodded, and she never would think otherwise; he would have climbed on that train with her if that were what had happened on that night, if they hadn’t been halted by their age. “You made it sound like a place I’d want to be,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you’re right about that,” she agreed, with the happiness she could only get when thinking of the place where she had been born and raised. It didn’t matter that she had made a new home somewhere else, no place could ever take what New York had been to her. It may have seen sadness and anger in levels higher than any girl her age would know to deal with, but it had also nurtured the parts of herself she could display with pride. “None of you have been there before?” she asked Lucas, and he shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>“There was going to be a trip there, our class, a couple years ago, but I didn’t get to go. And the others, well they weren’t in the same grade as me at the time. Then last year, it didn’t really happen either. And now, well…” he shrugged. To her, it was starting to feel like all of them, and Lucas in particular, had come so close to travelling to New York so many times, like he was supposed to see it.</p><p> </p><p>“I could send you guys videos if I do go. It won’t be the same as if you really went, but we could just pretend. I’ll go around like a tourist and everything,” she told him before sitting up and putting on a voice as close to what she approximated as Texan. “Oh I can’t wait to go and see the Statue of Liberty,” she declared, and he made a face she took to mean ‘I don’t sound like that,’ and she gave his shoulder a tap to tell him that yes, yes he did. “Come on now, Lucas,” she told him, still in her drawling voice. “Can you just imagine it?”</p><p> </p><p>“You sound ridiculous,” he told her, though if he thought she couldn’t see the grin he tried to hide, he was lying to himself. After a moment, he spoke, like he was at least taking her advice and he was imagining it. “I do want to see it though. And maybe we could all have gone to see a show, you know, Broadway and all that. And all those places we’ve seen in pictures, and in movies and on television… We could just walk around and see those… especially in the morning,” he added, and she gave a nod of approval; he’d remembered what she’d told him. “We would have a great guide,” he told her, and she played coy.</p><p> </p><p>“We’d need to keep an eye on Dylan,” she noted. “Or he’d get lost in no time and then we would never see him again.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think if we brought Nadine into that city, she would never want to leave,” Lucas chimed in. “And Asher would walk around telling us things like he’d lived there all his life.”</p><p> </p><p>“I really need to introduce him to Farkle someday,” Maya sighed, chuckling. “And Zay, he’d just be all over the place, wouldn’t he?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Lucas agreed. They fell silent again. She didn’t know why they were indulging this scenario… It wasn’t going to happen any more than the run they’d tried to make. It felt good to dream, but then it would stop, and they’d be left to remember this wasn’t what their summer would be; their summer would be together in Texas or split between Austin and New York.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0098"><h2>98. Their Year of Togetherness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The weeks had toppled onward, each one seeming to start as soon as the one before had done the same. They had seen the end looming, but they never felt the slow to a stop until today, when they had walked out of school, knowing that this was it… The school year had ended, summer had arrived.</p><p> </p><p>Now the six of them friends sat around their usual table, at Chubbie’s, and it was still hard for them to believe that it was done, that they didn’t have more to do. They sat, and they ate, and they talked about tests, and teachers, classmates and just anything that came to mind. None of them really dared to bring up summer, or their first free day and what they might do with it.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was looking at Maya with some curiosity. She had to know by now, didn’t she? Was she staying in Austin or was she headed back to New York? She <em>had</em> to know, but she hadn’t said a word about it yet. What was he supposed to do? He could ask her, he guessed. He hadn’t done it before because it would have felt he was pushing, with summer being ages away, but that wasn’t so, not anymore.</p><p> </p><p>“So next year’s going to be interesting,” Asher started, breaking Lucas from his thoughts. “Joey’s transferring, he’s coming to our school,” he revealed, launching the others from question to question. The Garcia twins had gone to different schools for as long as Lucas had known them. Their parents had chosen this path to allow their identical sons some individuality. It had only led to beliefs of their swapping places among their classmates, really.</p><p> </p><p>“Why’s he coming now?” Nadine asked.</p><p> </p><p>“He said he wanted to try it this way for a while, as long as we had the chance. I think he just doesn’t want to have to wear a uniform anymore,” Asher chuckled. “He has friends here anyway; they’re the ones who started the swap rumors. So, he’ll have them, and I’ll still have all of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds good to me,” Maya told him, and the rest of them agreed. “Is he coming just so you two can really switch places?” she dared him. He stared back at her for a moment, then shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“It might have crossed our minds to give it a try, at least once,” he admitted. “If we do though, I’m not going to tell you which day,” he vowed, and Zay pointed at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Someone put a mark on him,” he instructed.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t need that, I know where he has scars,” Dylan promised them, and Asher gave him a look. “But I do,” Dylan defended himself. “There’s the one on your foot from that time with the nail, there’s…”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, be cool, D, be cool,” Asher shushed him, and the others laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“I heard that, uh, Vanessa and her family are going to California and then Spain over the summer,” Nadine shared after a beat, as though she didn’t know how to be casual about it, with Zay sitting next to her. Lucas didn’t know why she’d even brought it up if that was the case. He looked at his best friend, expecting to find him in some way affected.</p><p> </p><p>“Heard that, too,” he only nodded, like it was an easy thing. “Her mother lives in San Francisco,” he told them. “She’s moving out to Spain for work, so she’s taking Vanessa along with her to see the place for a bit.” Lucas knew they’d been talking again, after they’d been sort of on the outs following the break. But he was still very much caught up in Nadine, even though he didn’t say a word. He looked back at her as Zay said all this, and he started to wonder if maybe Nadine had been trying to see where he stood, if he was still hung up on Vanessa. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if Maya hadn’t clued him in. He looked at Nadine and he saw uncertainty. She had never once shown her hand, always played it cool, but he’d just gone and spotted her moment of weakness, and he kind of felt bad for it. It made him want to reach out and reassure his friend, but he knew he couldn’t do that. She did not know that he knew, and this was not the time or place. Instead, he turned to Maya, and she tipped her head: she had it handled. He trusted her.</p><p> </p><p>They’d all left Chubbie’s to start for Dylan’s house, because what else were they going to do on their first free night but play just like they always did? They walked along, talking about one final or another, this teacher and that one. They talked about Mr. Jiménez and his final, which had been particularly easy, a gift he’d given them because he was retiring, he’d said. It was slowly becoming more and more of a fact that they were really done and on holiday.</p><p> </p><p>At Dylan’s house, the game was set. They decided to do things differently, going two on two, each match up leading to a winner, who would face the third duo, and so on, and so forth. Whichever pair won three times in a row would win it all. Asher and Dylan had made the first team, and Lucas had been about to turn to Zay and take him as his partner.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Huckleberry,” Maya had called to him at once, making him turn. “You and me?” she asked. He hesitated before seeing what she was getting at. He looked at Zay and Nadine for a second before moving to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, sure,” he told her, holding out his hand. She high fived him with a grin, while the remaining pair turned to one another.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Little Z?” Zay asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Tall Z,” Nadine nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Great, we’ll take on the winner,” Maya declared before pulling Lucas to sit on the lawn. “Am I meddling enough for you?” she asked him once the game had started and the others were too busy to listen in. “Or too much?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think that’s just right,” he decided, watching their intended partners now partnered to one another. As hesitant as he’d once been about their getting involved, for having seen the situation endure all this time, he knew that any help they could provide to the two of them would have been their privilege to give.</p><p> </p><p>“Just so we’re clear, it doesn’t matter what we’re working on with those two. We’re winning this thing, right?” she looked him in the eye, and he stared back for a moment before giving her a confident nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah we are,” he added, and she sat back with a look on her face that announced it clear: they would win. “Maya?” he finally managed to ask, though he didn’t need to give the actual question, because she answered it at once.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re staying for the summer. We’re not going to New York.” They didn’t speak for a beat. On the one hand, he was happy, thrilled even, but on the other… he wasn’t sure she was.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked, forgetting the game.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she shrugged. “I’m disappointed, but only because I won’t get to see all of them. But I’m <em>not</em> disappointed about spending the summer with all of you. I swear. There is no other place I would rather be.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0099"><h2>99. Her Surprise From the Unexpected</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A few days had passed, settling her and the rest of the students across the city into summer holidays, and Maya had assumed that surely by now the feeling would have left her. Surely by now she would have felt exactly as she’d told everyone she was feeling at the thought of not heading to New York over the summer. But that little hitch was still there, just as it had been since the moment her mother had told her they weren’t going. All along, she had been telling herself that she would have been fine either way, Austin or New York. But then the moment she’d been told it was Austin, she began to lament her not going to New York. The crazy thing was she was almost certain she would have had the feeling, too, had it all been the other way around. She would have been disappointed either way. Her world was split in two, and that was how it would remain.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t want her friends to know. It would only have sounded as though she wasn’t happy to be there with them, which she was, she really was. The last few days had been some of her best in Austin. It was a non-stop sort of thing with them, they would meet up in the morning, at someone’s house or elsewhere, and they wouldn’t part ways, most days, until evening. Today was the first exception they’d had to this rule. Nadine had family in town and couldn’t join them, and Asher and Dylan were off on a small trip with the rest of the Orlando family. Maya and Lucas and Zay could have met up in a reunion of the Grounded Brigade, but they’d decided they might as well give this time to family or simply to themselves. Maya was of the latter. If she could find a way to vacate this feeling she’d been having, she was going to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother knew about this feeling; she was the only one she’d told, surprisingly. After all this time she might not have been taken with the fact that she now confided in her mother, but she did, and she had, ever since the New York run. She hadn’t told Riley or Farkle about it, for about the same reasons she hadn’t told Lucas and the others here. But her mother didn’t belong to one side or the other, her mother, like her, was the only one who belonged to both, so she was the only and best candidate for confidence. And to see how glad she’d be that Maya would turn to her… it only made her more at ease.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother could only tell her that she believed it would pass, that she would find her way, just as she’d been doing since they’d moved. Maya wanted to believe this very much, she did, mostly. She would believe it more if it would just happen already. Maybe if she just didn’t think about it so much? How could she do <em>that</em>?</p><p> </p><p>Her mother was off at work, though they had pizza/movie night scheduled for that evening, one of their newer and most pleasant traditions. In the meantime, Maya was on her own, and she intended to use that time well. She’d set up everything in her room and, perched cross legged in her bay window, she was painting.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know what she was doing, not at first. She wanted to take this moment and try to work past… whatever she had to work past to remove the hitch. She thought she might accomplish it this way, and she did have this blank canvas sitting there, waiting to become something, so why not? She had looked at her paints, her colors, hoping for inspiration. When her eyes zeroed in on a vibrant purple, she smiled. Of course…</p><p> </p><p>So, she’d started, and she’d put herself to work creating a morning in New York. And within her dreamlike landscape, when it would be ready, she would trace in those faces she missed so much, there along with her. Maybe she could send it to them.</p><p> </p><p>They’d been disappointed, too, when she’d told them she wasn’t coming. As much as Lucas and the others had been telling her about what they all might do over the summer, Riley and Farkle had been doing the same. Now all of <em>these</em> plans had fallen apart for them. It was impossible for her to think she hadn’t seen them in just a few months shy of a year. She’d seen them on a screen, yes, but it wasn’t ever going to be the same, and she wasn’t about to pretend as though it could be. She would see them there and she could sort of notice how the two of them were changing. Part of that was physical. Farkle looked like he was getting taller, and Riley was changed, much as Maya herself probably was, too.</p><p> </p><p>But it was more than that. Nine months apart had forced them to adjust, to adapt, just as she had. They had become used to her not being there with them. They had moved on. A part of her worried that, if she weren’t with them soon, they would just move on altogether and forget…</p><p> </p><p>Oh…</p><p> </p><p>Her brush was still, and she sat back, recognizing now where her fears had stemmed. She put the brush down for a moment, just as she heard the doorbell. She looked back at her canvas, and in that moment, she swore she knew who would be standing on her front porch. She went out and, as she neared the door, as she saw the top of that head, she knew that she’d been right.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn Hunter had returned to visit.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0100"><h2>100. Her Surprise From Then & Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was the second time she welcomed the man into her home, but it was by no means only the second chance she’d had to talk with him. When he had left at Christmas, right before he’d gone, he’d given her a piece of paper where he’d written down all the ways she might reach him, and he had told her to use them, if she ever needed to. It had been an unexpected gesture, but one she had appreciated still. When he had also said he might check in on her every so often, she’d asked why he would do that. He had shrugged and said that, if he had been in her place, he would have wanted the same. He was right.</p><p> </p><p>For half a year now, they’d kept in touch. He would call, once or twice a month, and she would do the same. When she’d almost run to New York, she had sent him a letter, explaining the whole thing, as though she couldn’t ‘face’ him. He had responded in kind, and she had found him as understanding as understanding could be. He had said that if she ever went through something like this again, she should absolutely call him, day or night. Between all this, and the gift, and the emergency money he’d sent her way, she was smiling by the time she opened the door; he was smiling, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn Hunter,” she called in a tone that might as well have been saying ‘well, well, well… look who it is.’</p><p> </p><p>“Who won?” he nodded back at her, pointing to her arm, and the streak of yellow paint. She had almost dropped her brush earlier and managed to catch it on her arm. “Can I come in?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yeah,” she stepped aside, and he came in, stopping in front of her. “So, what brings you here this time?”</p><p> </p><p>“Photo assignment,” he told her. She squinted at him. “For real this time,” he swore. She nodded, letting him know she didn’t believe it one bit. “I swear, see? Camera,” he held up a large bag.</p><p> </p><p>“Right, okay,” she shrugged; she was holding the right to think this was a lie. It wasn’t a bad one, was it? This kind of lie she could appreciate, no matter how much she messed with him. She was actually so happy to see him, more than she thought she would be.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I am really here on assignment, alright?” He paused, nodding to himself. “But you know what? I’m really glad I had a shot at coming to see you guys.” She smiled again now, the feeling more than mutual. “Speaking of which,” he looked around, “Where’s your mom?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s working, at the theater,” Maya told him.</p><p> </p><p>“I wanted to take you guys out for lunch,” he revealed, “You did have me over for Christmas, so I figured why not. But we can go another day, or tonight?” Maya looked at the time, then back at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Stay here,” she told him. Running to her room, she found her keys and slipped them into her pocket, removed the band she’d put in her hair to keep it out of the way while she painted, and finally ran back to open the front door again. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going somewhere?” he asked, following.</p><p> </p><p>“We can go and surprise my mom at work, and we can, well… <em>you</em> can take her to lunch… and me,” Maya explained. “Otherwise, she’ll eat her sad little sandwich all by herself,” she laid the words out like pieces of a picture and watched him pick them up, consider them. Finally, he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, let’s go get your mom,” he let her lead the way and they walked off. He still carried his bag with him, which he insisted was in case he saw anything he wanted to stop and photograph. They reached the bus stop and sat on the bench. “So, summer day like this and you were just home…”</p><p> </p><p>“You came to the house, what did you expect? I’m starting to wonder if there’s even a camera in your bag. It could be… shoes, or… a snack.” Shawn shook his head, taking the camera out of the bag and showing it to her. She reached for it and he pulled it out of her reach. “Hey!”</p><p> </p><p>“Hands, show me your hands, Picasso,” he instructed. She relented, frowning. Once she’d passed his inspection, he finally put the camera in her hands. She held it up with great curiosity, looking through the lens, inspecting the features.</p><p> </p><p>“So how long is this ‘assignment?’” she asked, “I’m making air quotes by the way.” She heard him chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>“Two weeks,” he replied, and she almost dropped the camera and almost cracked her head against it at the same time. She turned to look at him, wondering if this was true. He nodded. She looked back down at the camera, held it up and pointed it at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Hold still, Hunter… How do I do this?” He reached out to show her before letting her take his picture. It felt like the thing to do when something good happened.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0101"><h2>101. Her Surprise From Another</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was hard to explain how much this person had become part of her life. She hadn’t even really told much to her friends about him. Here was a man who was best friends growing up with <em>her</em> best friend’s father – who had also been their teacher – and who she’d only seen once before today but had been corresponding with for months, while he also gave her money, and presents… Even she would have found it sort of strange if she hadn’t been living it.</p><p> </p><p>But she <em>was</em> living it, and the fact was that having Shawn Hunter in her life had been beneficial beyond measure. She didn’t even know how to define it yet, and she didn’t want to. She just wanted things to stay like they were.</p><p> </p><p>The theater where her mother worked was not the biggest, but it wasn’t small either. She told Shawn when they approached it about the day when her mother had first brought her to see it. She was so proud to do it, almost as much as she’d been to show Maya their house for the first time. And she was proud of her work, too. She wasn’t acting, not at the moment, though it was on her horizon. Her work was behind the scenes, and, as she’d told Maya, she had discovered a new corner to her passion for the stage.</p><p> </p><p>Still, it was there that Maya and Shawn would find her, talking with Hildy as the both of them looked up at lights and other things overhead. Telling Shawn to wait at the back of the room, Maya jogged up the aisle, stopping at the edge of the stage.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom?” she called out. Her mother and Hildy both turned toward her. Her mother smiled to find her there, coming to crouch in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re not out with your friends?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not today,” Maya shook her head. “Not <em>those</em> friends anyway. We had a visitor,” she pointed to the back of the room, where Shawn could just be seen out in the shadows. He waved, and Maya turned back to her mother, seeing that she had seen him, too. She looked so surprised that Maya almost reached out to steady her, for fear that she’d tip forward and fall off the stage.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn?” her mother spoke, more to herself than anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s in Austin for two weeks… photo assignment,” Maya told her. “He wants to take us to lunch, can we go?” she asked. Her mother hesitated for a moment, blinked, but then she nodded, getting back up on her feet as steadily as she could.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, yeah, just give me a minute, okay? I’ll be right there,” her mother told her, so Maya moved to rejoin Shawn. As she walked up the aisle, her mother behind her and Shawn ahead of her, she found herself looking to one and the other.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at her mother and she saw something in the way she stood, talking to Hildy again for a moment, that felt like a blast from the past, something she hadn’t seen, not since they’d come to Texas. She was nervous, sort of jittery, and there was just the edge of a smile on her face, the kind where she didn’t know what to do with herself. She half-expected her to pull lip gloss from her pocket at any second.</p><p> </p><p>And then she looked at Shawn, at how he paced back and forth. Why was <em>he</em> nervous? He was the one who’d come to see them, to take them to lunch. The way they’d been talking, him and her, she would have figured this reunion would have been much the same. But he was off in his own world right now, like he wasn’t even seeing her come back toward him, and he wasn’t seeing that <em>she</em> was seeing <em>him</em>, as he took a look toward the stage.</p><p> </p><p>Maya stopped where she stood. Something was missing. It was right there, but it made no sense. Her mother and Shawn had only seen each other the one time, they hadn’t been talking like him and her, had they? That’d be the only way it could make sense to her that they could be acting like a couple of people who’d been anxious to see the other again.</p><p> </p><p>Knowing this, and even lacking any sort of confirmation one way or the other, Maya felt immediately like fear was coming in. Shawn had been a good thing in her life for half a year, and she didn’t want to cast her mother as the one who would send him running, back out of her life, same as… well, same as other people.</p><p> </p><p>Everything had been going so well with them, her mother and her, good, stable… happy. Now there was this, and Maya had no idea what to do and think. She opened her mouth to call to him, back to attention, only her mother was coming up behind her now, and she beat her to it.</p><p> </p><p>“This is a nice surprise,” she called, and Shawn stopped his pacing and turned to face them.</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t think where else I’d be, while I’m here,” he shrugged with a smile that matched hers. Maya gave him a look. “While I’m not working… Did Maya mention I was here on assignment?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0102"><h2>102. Her Surprise From Herself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was no question as to where she was going to suggest the three of them go to have lunch. Maya had brought her mother and Shawn to Chubbie’s. Shawn had chuckled when he’d seen the sign, telling them how he used to hang out with <em>his </em>friends at a place called Chubbie’s, too, back in Philadelphia. The comparison ended once they went through the door. Maya almost had to laugh, seeing the look on his face. It reminded her of what her own face must have looked like, the first time she’d come here. Now she looked around and it all just felt like… Chubbie’s. That kind of felt good.</p><p> </p><p>They went and found a table, not her usual, where she’d sit with her friends. Maya sat on one side of the square table, her mother on the other, and Shawn sat between them. After ordering their lunch, the conversation had fallen into Shawn’s hands. He wanted to know how they were, what was going on in their lives… Her mother had happily given Maya a nod, letting her go and talk first, and Shawn had turned to face her in a way that said plainly ‘you have my undivided attention.’ Maya looked at the pair of them for a moment, looking at her and smiling; she felt so warm, happy and at ease.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” she started, thinking of what she might say. “I got my grades for the year, they were… better than they’d been before, that’s for sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that all you’ve got to say, better than before?” her mother cut in. “Maya, you did very well this year, you don’t have to underplay it,” she insisted, with that proud smile of hers. Maya felt her cheeks just shy of warming, and the worn menu in front of her became very interesting, better that than to feel nervous all of a sudden.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s great, Maya,” Shawn told her, and she had to look up, to see the smile he gave her. “I’m happy for you,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she spoke low, pushing her hair behind her shoulders, looking around for a moment, hoping to find a new subject, anything to stop feeling awkward. “So, this assignment of yours, what’s it about?” she asked. He shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Summer, Texas…” She looked him in the eye.</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty vague for a two-week thing,” she smirked. He didn’t blink or break eye contact.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well, you can’t rush art, can you? You should know a thing or two about that by now.” He wasn’t going to make it easy on her, deciding whether this assignment of his was real or not. “Now come on, I didn’t come all this way just for pictures. School’s good, yeah, now what else?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m working on a painting, for Riley. If I finish it while you’re still here, will you take it to her on your way back home?” He scratched at his neck.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, sure, yeah,” he told her. “Are you sure though? Don’t you want to give it to her yourself?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, yeah, but…” She stopped herself from saying what she’d been about to say, because as true as ‘I don’t even know when <em>that’s</em> going to happen’ would have been, it would only have made her mother feel bad. That wasn’t what she wanted. “I don’t mind. We can do sort of like she did at Christmas, with the phone.” He thought it out, gave her another look.</p><p> </p><p>“You give it to her yourself, Maya, alright? From the hands that made it, to the ones who will be so happy to hold it. Got it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” she agreed. It wouldn’t have been right anyway, rushing to finish just so he’d take it. And she <em>did</em> want to give it to Riley in person. The way she saw it, they weren’t going to make it back to New York this summer, but they would for Christmas, her mother had told her they would back in December, and nothing was telling her any of this had changed. She could give it to her for Christmas, she would. She would see the look on her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Next one’s for me, yeah?” Shawn asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Actually, I’m already spoken for,” she revealed with a grin. “Mrs. Friar, Lucas’ mom, she asked me to do one for her.” She had thought the woman hadn’t been serious; she’d been wrong. “But I’d be happy to pencil you in after.”</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, that’s right, you told me about him,” Shawn nodded, and she swore the look that flashed across his face for a second made her picture him going ‘what are your intentions with this little girl?’ if he ever saw Lucas, which was as funny as it was odd.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I did, he’s my friend. I’m going to do a painting for his mom.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good, alright,” Shawn slowly nodded. She was as good as he was at not wavering. After a moment, he went and turned to look at her mother. “How’ve <em>you</em> been, Katy?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0103"><h2>103. Her Surprise From Hope</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had long prided herself in the belief that she could pick up on things pretty well, but now today she’d come to see that some things could be right under her nose and not be seen at all. She had been going on the assumption that her mother and Shawn had only ever interacted in any way at Christmas, when he’d come into her life.</p><p> </p><p>Now she looked at the two of them, and she thought about that whole business back at the theater, and she took in the way Shawn had turned to her mother, and when she put it all together, what she came up to was… this wasn’t the second time at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait a minute,” she sat up. “You two, you’ve been talking all this time, too, haven’t you?” They both turned to look at her, after they’d looked to each other for a second. They were stuck, and Maya could see each one of them trying to think of what to say as much as they seemed to just be recalling something that gave the smallest hint of a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I just told her to call, if she ever wanted to talk,” Shawn finally spoke up. Her mother nodded. “And she did. And I did. So… yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had gone on to answer Shawn’s question, telling him about how she’d been, and as Shawn listened to this with great attention, Maya sat quietly and considered what she had just seen, and heard, everything it would possibly mean for them, for her.</p><p> </p><p>It was so easy for her mind to go to those places, where she imagined those two becoming somehow romantically involved, and the initial reaction was panic, as it only ever could. It always came back down to the same thing, didn’t it? It was her father, and how he’d left, and why he’d left, what she had known all along, maybe grown to doubt in the last year… but the reflex was still the same for her, to be afraid that it would all go wrong, because it always had… In her heart, governed by how she’d grown up, she imagined Shawn going away, from Austin and from her life, the way <em>he</em> had…</p><p> </p><p>And thinking <em>that</em> was a whole other issue for her to consider. Was she holding him up to that position in her life? He was her friend, sort of… He was older, sure, but why not? She was always able to turn to him if she needed to talk, if she needed to unburden herself of something, something she knew he would understand because he’d been through some similar situations. She could turn to him and feel safe to open up, and there was no one else like that, or… well, there was, more and more since they’d come here, and that other was the woman sitting across from her and talking animatedly about her work at the theater. So maybe she <em>did</em> think about him like that, whether or not she could make herself say the word or think it at all.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at them now, really looked at them. All this time she’d been considering what this could mean for her, and it <em>was</em> hard for her to set this aside when it had been shaking her mind up, but the benefit of silence, and contemplation, was that she could find the way to discover this other side, away from her own point of view and toward theirs.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know so much about Shawn, sure. She’d been getting to know him throughout the year, and that was growing, but it still felt that she was only scratching the surface. Even so, what she knew of him would only make it clearer for her that the man sitting next to her was… not unhappy, but still lacking in something. She didn’t really see it or hear it so much unless he told her about what was going on in <em>his</em> life though, and as she looked at the way he looked at her mother, or even the way he was with her, maybe it was because he wasn’t missing it anymore, not with them. Maybe…</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know so much about Shawn, but she knew her mother. She had been shown how in a lot of ways she’d been assuming things about her that had not been true, but she still knew her, and she could sort of see how having someone like Shawn to talk to would have been beneficial to <em>her</em>, too. Maya looked at her, and she could see how happy her mother was to have him <em>and</em> her sitting around the table with her, as much as she could feel her own happiness, at seeing her mother’s smile.</p><p> </p><p>So, what was she going to do, what was she <em>supposed</em> to do? Everything she saw now was becoming mixed up in her mind, allowing her to imagine a world where her mother, and Shawn, and her, all became something more to each other. It all felt wonderful to think about it, of course, but she was still afraid as though everything was going so well, and she was being deceived. Something would go wrong, something always did.</p><p> </p><p>Could she do it? Could she believe that this was possible, could she <em>hope</em>? As much as her life had turned around, and changed, and become good, she couldn’t quite leave the past behind.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>wanted</em> to do it. She <em>wanted</em> to believe that this was possible, she <em>wanted</em> to hope.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0104"><h2>104. Her Surprise From the City</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was something new to her, this embracing of possibility, of hope. It felt like being on a bike for the first time, all sort of wobbly, keeping her in constant fear that she would lose her balance and crash hard on her face. It felt like that, to let things unfold as they would for her mother and Shawn, to neither hinder nor assist. She could have been standing by, letting her good little thing with Shawn, having him to reach out to, crumble in her hands, but… she could also have been letting the opposite have an actual shot, too. Texas was the land of change, wasn’t it? Everything else had been evolving around her, growing better, growing stronger and not so brittle. This would be the ultimate test to that trust.</p><p> </p><p>After lunch, Maya and Shawn had to escort her mother back to work. As much as she would have liked to stay with them, she just couldn’t cut out on work. But they had left her, there at the theater, with the promise that they would be right back here waiting for her at the end of the day. Then, the city would be theirs.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, kid,” Shawn had told her after her mother had gone. “So what do you want to do now? We’ve got a few hours to kill.” She smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“It so happens… I’m kind of an apprentice guide.”</p><p> </p><p>So as the afternoon wore on, that was how she spent the hours, taking Shawn around the city, showing him some of her favorite spots, telling him stories. It felt a lot like her first weekend with her friends, when <em>they</em> had shown her around this way. It gave her an extra bit of height to her smile to think of this and of them.</p><p> </p><p>They’d gone and sat in the park for a while, in the spot where she had lunch with the others, where they would come and sit. She had convinced Shawn to let her get a hold of his camera again; as he said, on the condition that he’d get to show her how to use it. She took up the camera, listened to his instructions and followed them.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I take a picture now or what?” she frowned in the end, squinting back at him. He tipped his head: go for it. She looked back through the lens.</p><p> </p><p>The first picture she took was sort of familiar to her; she had drawn this very image back in September, from out of her memories. Shawn would send it to her, and she couldn’t wait to compare the two. She took several more shots, including two of Shawn. The first was a blur and a hand, as he’d turned away in surprise, but then after she had convinced him to sit still, she had taken a proper shot. She wanted to have that one, too. She had plenty of drawings on her walls, and paintings had started to crop up, but she thought having a photo of him, Shawn the photographer… that felt right.</p><p> </p><p>After the park, they had gone back to the house to drop off his camera, so he wouldn’t have to carry it around that evening. When this was done, they had gone back on their way. They passed her school, and she pointed it out to him. He asked her how she liked it, compared to her old school, how her new teachers were. It was hard to say, really. Both schools had their winning points. Grades and all aside, there was little to put one school over the other. Her teachers were just… her teachers. Miss Alcott had become her favorite pretty early on. She had never done so well in English class, or ever gotten through assigned readings the way she’d done in her class this year. She had gotten to sort of like Mr. Jiménez by the end of the year, too, of course by the time she’d realized this, he’d had to go and retire…</p><p> </p><p>When it was almost time to go and pick up her mother, they had started on their way back to the theater. The day had been a good one. She’d been thinking that it would be one for her to stay at home, quietly painting, and it would have been good, but this was definitely better, getting to hang out with Shawn after she had mostly only gotten to speak or write with him. And now he would be here for two weeks, which would mean many more chances for them to do things, either the two of them, or them and her mother…</p><p> </p><p>They stopped and sat on a bench outside the theater, waiting for her mother to exit. For a moment she had considered asking him the questions that continued to run through her mind, as they’d done since lunch. She couldn’t do it though. She couldn’t ask him if he was going to date her mother, if he was looking to become more involved in their lives. She was tempting hope; she wouldn’t tempt it <em>that</em> far.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>She looked up, just as Shawn did, though his back did not straighten up the way hers did as she saw Lucas and Zay coming up the street, toward them. She didn’t know why she’d gotten so nervous all of a sudden at the thought of Shawn meeting two of her friends, but her stomach had just gotten very tight all at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s that?” Shawn asked, and she closed her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0105"><h2>105. Her Surprise From the Heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Shawn, these are two of my friends. This is Lucas, that’s Zay. We go to school together; they were the first people I met there, actually. I’ve told you about them, remember? Guys, this is Shawn, I told <em>you</em> about <em>him</em>, too. He’s in Austin for a couple weeks, so he took my mom and me out for lunch earlier, now we’re waiting for her.” It was as straightforward as it could ever get, and she was sort of proud of how it had turned out. Still, she couldn’t help but look from one face to the other. Lucas and Zay were merely nodding, saying their hellos, while Shawn looked back at them sort of like he was… inspecting.</p><p> </p><p>“Are they the ones who tried to go to New York with you?” he finally spoke, and she thought that the blink of an urge to run she saw in her friends’ eyes might not have been inappropriate. But after a moment, the tension broke, if just halfway. Shawn reached out his hand, for little more than a handshake, which the boys cautiously returned, trying not to look so spooked. Maya almost had to laugh. Maybe she was a little touched at this display of protective energy coming off her friend and potential who-knew-what… “Good to put a face to a name,” he went on, and she had to appreciate he wasn’t exactly letting them off the hook. <em>She </em>could know that he <em>was</em> grateful for all they’d done for her, but Lucas and Zay didn’t have that luxury, so here they were, quaking.</p><p> </p><p>“Same here,” Zay spoke awkwardly, and Maya stopped herself from laughing. “Maya told us how you gave her those paint… things… She’s really good, did you know?” He was thankfully put out of his misery when Lucas nudged him, and he stopped.</p><p> </p><p>“We should get going,” Lucas nodded to Maya and to Shawn. “But it was nice to meet you,” he tipped his head to Shawn before turning back to her. It was amazing sometimes how easy it had gotten for her to read into his looks. She stared back at him and she could almost hear him. <em>Sorry we couldn’t talk more. I’ll call or write later.</em> “See you around, Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>“Later,” she waved them off with a smirk before turning back to Shawn with a curve of the brow. “So… what was that all about?” she asked, curious. He was playing it cool, shrugging.</p><p> </p><p>“What, I was nice, wasn’t I?” he asked back.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, sure,” she chuckled. “Even if you greeted two of my best friends here like they’d shown up at the door to take me out or something, and you were giving them The Look like you were my f…” She paused. He looked at her. “My friend,” she finished… corrected.</p><p> </p><p>Now they were both silent. She hadn’t exactly fooled anyone, had she? He knew what she’d really meant to say. Maybe it would have been simpler if she’d said it like that, no hesitation. Instead she’d stopped, and she’d drawn attention to the subject, which now sat heavily between them like a neon sign.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I…” he started, but she shook her head. She didn’t want him to say anything, whether it was the one answer or the other. Neither of them would have left her completely unaffected, and neither did this, but it felt better. “No, but really, let me just try and say something, alright? Please?” She hesitated.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she finally said. He nodded to himself, sitting up, thinking for a few seconds while she waited, feeling so very exposed now.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, and I don’t know… what I’m supposed to be for you exactly. All I can tell you for the time being is that… the way it is now, you’re good with that, yeah?” She nodded. ‘Good’ didn’t even begin to cover it. “That’s not going to go away,” he told her, promised her. “I’ve been trying to figure out where I was supposed to fit in all this. You and me, we’re a lot alike, we already said that, and I know I wouldn’t want someone coming into my life like this and think they could just up and leave and it wouldn’t mean anything, and I don’t think you’d want that either.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t,” she spoke quietly. He nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what’s going to happen next, or if I’m going to be something more. But I’m still going to be this, right here. Is that okay?” He was looking at her, careful, almost hopeful.</p><p> </p><p>“More than okay,” she told him, and when she saw the breath come from him like relief, her response was to reach over as they sat together and hug him.</p><p> </p><p>After a beat he hugged her back, and he held her a moment more before they pulled away and looked at each other again. It was like he said. Whether he’d become… <em>that</em>… to her, they couldn’t know. But he was <em>this</em>, and if he weren’t ever more, maybe she could deal with it, too.</p><p> </p><p>“So…” she finally spoke again. They had to find something else to talk about before her mother came out to join them or they’d look weird and she would want to know why. “What do you want to do tonight when Mom gets done in there? Dinner, I guess, but what then?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s up to you,” he told her. “Any other places you two wanted to show? I mean, sure, there’ll be other times, the next couple weeks, but if there’s anything you’d…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think you’re right. I think we should go back to the house. We could pick up something from Asher’s uncle’s diner. I get a special because we’re friends…”</p><p> </p><p>“A lot of guy friends,” he commented, and she smacked his arm. “Dinner from the diner, sounds good.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it does. We’ll go back and eat at home, then we can watch a movie, or something… We have a hoop in the back, how are you at basketball?” she asked. He gave her a short sort of laugh she took to mean exactly what it meant.</p><p> </p><p>“I think, you know… I’m alright,” he shrugged, and she met his eye with a competitive glance.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you wanna go, Hunter?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I think I do, Hart,” he gave as much as he got. She sat back, he sat back, neither breaking eye contact.</p><p> </p><p>“Well this should be good…”</p><p> </p><p>The door opened behind them a moment later, and the staring contest was put on hold. Maya saw the look on her mother’s face when she saw the both of them standing there waiting for her, and she couldn’t have asked for more.</p><p> </p><p>The three of them went off together, on their way to the diner. As they walked, Maya told her mother about her time with Shawn, all that they had done, and now what they had planned for the evening. Maya knew it would be a good night, she felt it; she had no sensation of doubt, and that was even better.</p><p> </p><p>They picked up dinner and returned home, sharing their second meal that day. The way things were going, Maya wondered if they might be sharing every next meal with Shawn while he was in Austin. She wouldn’t say no; she liked the way things were when it was the three of them.</p><p> </p><p>Her instincts would have told her this couldn’t work, that believing it was fool’s work. But she was not that girl anymore, or… she was, but she had made changes, good changes. She had not one wish to go back to the way things had been before this was her now.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0106"><h2>106. Their Holidays With a Party</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>July was wearing on, and today was something Maya had been looking forward to all summer. Zay had promised her his family’s summer party would be one of those things she’d be most thankful to have ended up having to stay in Austin for. She’d had the day marked down on her calendar all along, and now the day had finally arrived. She was getting ready to head out there now, and as she did so, she would think about their summer thus far.</p><p> </p><p>It was all going by so fast, wasn’t it? She hadn’t known what to expect from this summer, being happy to be with her new friends but also missing her old ones, missing New York. The fact was that after all this time, she wasn’t thinking about it anymore, not that way. She still missed them, still talked to them the same as she’d done before, more often even, but for the most part it was all as it had been before, when she’d been in school. The days went on, and they were good… they were so good.</p><p> </p><p>For weeks now she’d been working at the diner, three afternoons a week, and it had been great; she’d dare to say that out of all of them, she’d been the one who had been doing the best. All the money she’d earned up until then had been put aside along with Shawn’s emergency fund, though she <em>had</em> used part of it to treat herself to some more art supplies. That had been a good day.</p><p> </p><p>Then two weeks ago, Lucas had kept several promises he’d made, when the six of them and Pappy Joe had gone camping for three nights. They were out there, and again as promised they had gone fishing. Maya had not anticipated what it would feel like to see a fish hanging from a hook, flopping about, and she had lost her taste for the practice quick. But she liked sitting out on the boat, pretending she <em>was</em> fishing, and that had been good enough, especially after Lucas had joined her in pretend fishing. The best parts of their trip, along with fishless fishing had been the nights sat by the fire, and the mornings waking up to nature, the swimming out in the lake, and just sitting around. There was one drawing on her wall now that showed the six of them and Pappy Joe huddled in their tents as they watched the rain fall. That had been the last morning out there, and they had spent it just like this.</p><p> </p><p>And just days ago, Maya had checked something else off her list by climbing on the Chubbie’s stage and performing at their latest open mic. She hadn’t even planned to do it, not until the day itself. They’d been sitting at their table and then, all of a sudden, she had made up her mind. The day had come, she was ready. She hadn’t warned the others. She’d just gotten up, and she’d gone to ask about getting a go. They knew her by now, she was a regular, and they had gotten her on that stage. To see the look of surprise in her friends’ faces had only been surpassed by the smile she’d gotten when she’d heard them cheering her on. After that, the performance itself had been a breeze, and Maya had been sure of one thing: she wanted to do that again.</p><p> </p><p>And the summer wasn’t over, was it? They still had weeks to go, to do with as they pleased. She couldn’t wait to see what those weeks would hold. It might have felt bad for her to admit it, but this had been her best summer to date. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Riley and Farkle had been around and knowing <em>that</em> had made the rest easier to admit to herself.</p><p> </p><p>Zay’s family’s party was being held at his aunt Susanne’s house. She’d never been there, though she’d briefly met the woman once when she and Zay and the others had been out at the mall. She might have felt awkward about going to a party with many strangers at a stranger’s house, but the way Zay and the others had been talking to her about this party, the feeling she got was that she had nothing to worry about. And there was a pool, so as instructed she’d put on her swimsuit under her clothes.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother would drive her to Aunt Susanne’s house. Hildy’s mother’s old car was now theirs, even though they didn’t always use it. In times like these, it certainly came in handy. They also picked up Nadine on the way, and the other girl told her stories of the previous year’s party as her mother drove. The highlight seemed to be when Asher had gotten all ‘swoony’ at Zay’s cousin Tasha, three years their senior, and had proceeded to follow her around to do her bidding for a long while before they’d pulled him away and ‘broken the spell.’</p><p> </p><p>They pulled up to the house – Nadine had been there at the two previous years’ parties, along with the others. Susanne was Zay’s godmother, and she always insisted his friends were more than welcome to these gatherings. Lucas, Asher and Dylan had been to these for as many years as they’d known Zay, and Maya knew she could look forward to plenty more of these in her years to come. She was looking forward to it already.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0107"><h2>107. Their Holidays With the Babineaux Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had arrived early, along with Zay. It had become a custom that they would help set up everything, make the back and forth to the basement and the back items stored below. It wasn’t long that the family would start to arrive, and then it wouldn’t stop, the house and the backyard would be overtaken by the whole of the Babineaux family both near and far, young and old. Among them would be a few clusters of family friends who, like Zay’s friends, had been invited to take part. In whole, they expected almost fifty people. It was noisy and chaotic, and it was wonderful, always.</p><p> </p><p>Aunt Susanne, Zay’s father’s sister, was directing her kitchen like some general, and it was a well-oiled machine after so many of these gatherings. The one factor that could make any sort of wave was the small statured Geraldine Babineaux, commonly called GiGi by all who knew her. She had been living with granddaughter Susanne for several years now, and they could count on her having been up from the crack of dawn to get the ball rolling, and now, as guests came about, she had yet to stop, throwing in her own methods and ingredients. Lucas and Zay were familiar with this dance between Zay’s aunt and great grandmother; it was like the show, <em>before</em> the dinner… or the lunch.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had been brought over that morning by Zay and his parents. His father, Isaiah Sr, was now being caught up between his sister and grandmother, as always, while his mother, Lynette, would try and pull him back on track, helping her instead of playing ball between the family generals.</p><p> </p><p>Finally they were joined by Asher and Dylan, who made their tasks go by much faster, so that by the time the girls arrived, they were all done and able to take them around, the better to introduce Maya to everyone. They would insist she didn’t need to try and remember every single person’s name; even some of them who’d been coming to these things for years had difficulty remembering.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was happy to see how thrilled Maya was to be there. There were different levels to her excitement; he’d been discovering them for almost a year. This one was maybe the ideal, not the kind where anyone would be on the receiving end of her mischief or machinations, just her full and open interest. He had experienced it most notably, to some extent, the day they’d had the museum trip.</p><p> </p><p>Every new guest they would introduce her to would have one of a few responses. Some would greet her casually and everyone would carry on with their conversations. Others would have heard about this new friend of Zay’s out of New York and would ask her how she was doing, how she liked it here. Lucas would watch her as she replied to each of these questions as poised as ever, and he would smirk as they moved from one group to the other, where she would start again. Then there were the handful of family members she had met already, at Christmas and a few times more in the months since.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they had made the rounds though, it was clear that Maya was most drawn – like all of them – to GiGi, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. She would take Maya’s hands in her own, her smiling face making Maya look like she’d been warmed by the sun after being out in the cold. She would call her Honey Bee, for her golden hair, and she may have been invited for her being Zay’s friend, but to GiGi, as much for Maya as for the rest of them, she <em>was</em> family, so of course she belonged at the party.</p><p> </p><p>The six of them had helped to drive the masses of people into the yard, where they could spread out. Music was playing, people were talking, and Lucas and the others slipped over to the pool. All it took was for Dylan to make quick work of getting down to swim trunks and jump in the water for the rest of them to do the same. In no time, they were joined by a number of Babineaux cousins. Lucas had found his usual buddy, Susanne’s youngest, Will. He was eight now, but Lucas had known him since he was a baby, as long as he’d known Zay. Will would go off swimming, and Lucas would have to catch him. As he’d splash by, he could see Nadine repeatedly and gleefully knocking at Zay with a beach ball, while he tried to escape, and Dylan and Maya both trying to distract Asher after he’d spotted Zay’s other cousin, his former infatuation.</p><p> </p><p>After Will had made it to the other end of the pool and back, earning him his win, he had run off after his big brother, leaving Lucas to swim back on his own, diving below the surface and re-emerging behind Maya, startling her into a shriek before turning around and splashing him with a laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Trying to pull a fast one there, Huckleberry?” she asked him, blinking water from her eyes and sweeping hair from her face. “I’m shocked.”</p><p> </p><p>“What, just because you think I’m a cowboy, it doesn’t mean I can’t have fun, too…” He gave her a look, and she must have recognized what it meant because, in the next second, she dove under and swam away. The chase was on.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0108"><h2>108. Their Holidays With a Chance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They could not have asked for a better day to have this party. The sun was good and bright, not too warm, and the breeze was good. Maya had been walking around the yard a while after getting out of the pool. She was looking at the people, all the Babineaux aunts, uncles, cousins… It was fascinating to see so many faces that held something of her friend. The family resemblance was there in their features, and Maya thought it might have been interesting to sketch them all. She didn’t have all her things though… Maybe she could get some paper from…</p><p> </p><p>She stopped, turning on her heel and sprinting back across the yard, seeking one face until she found him.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas!” she called to him when she finally spotted him coming back out of the house with a loaded plate. “Lucas!” He turned at the sound of his name, and she caught up to him, only to pull the plate from his hands – which he protested – and set it down on a table. “You need to come and see something,” she told him, pulling him by the arm until she knew he’d be following along.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are we going? And why did I have to leave my plate, someone’s going to…” He stopped when she turned back and gave him a look: be quiet. “Where are we going?” he asked again, and she guided him to follow her back to where she’d been only a moment ago, to where she’d seen what had sent her dashing to get a hold of him. When they got there, she nodded for him to see for himself.</p><p> </p><p>It might not have looked as though much of anything was going on, not to anyone who didn’t know at least a bit of this whole tale, dragged out over the past few months. But then the two of them did, and when Lucas saw Nadine and Zay, sat by the pool the way they were, it gave him pause, too, she could see it.</p><p> </p><p>It would have been easy to write it off as just two friends talking, and in all likelihood that was probably what was actually happening. But that was on the surface, and what they saw underneath, oh, well…</p><p> </p><p>How long had they been waiting, Maya and Lucas, knowing what their two friends felt for each other and waiting for one or both of them to admit it to the other? How long could two people who had those feelings just hold on to them without saying a word? It didn’t seem possible.</p><p> </p><p>But what they were seeing now had all the markings of two people who either didn’t know how to hold it in much longer or were just maybe trying to work up the courage to say something. Knowing those two as they did, it seemed the only logical solution that they would crash and burn before they ever let that courage solidify.</p><p> </p><p>“Should we…” Lucas started to speak, and when he stopped and sighed, she knew where his head was. Since the beginning, he had been dead set on the fact that they shouldn’t interfere, but he wasn’t sure anymore, was he?</p><p> </p><p>“You know what I’d say… normally anyway. But it’s possible you may have a point, too,” she told him. He turned to her like she’d said something odd. “You heard me, okay? Look, here’s what I’m thinking. We give them more time. Maybe they’ll pull it off on their own. If that can happen then… good. But if they look like they’re about to mess up, <em>then</em> we step in, deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah… okay,” he agreed.</p><p> </p><p>“Good. Now let’s go somewhere else before they see us and think we’re spying. You don’t know where I could get some paper, do you?” she asked as she led him away and back through the yard. They’d made it about halfway when Asher and Dylan found them and asked if they had seen the Z’s. Maya tossed Lucas a look, hoping he’d know to follow her lead, before looking around as though searching.</p><p> </p><p>“They must be around here somewhere,” she told them, moving back the way they’d come. As they went, she would call the others’ names. When they neared the pool, she spotted them discreetly and picked up a notable increase in distance, as though the call of their names had – successfully – spurred them to spring apart, as innocent as their conversation had been. Asher and Dylan didn’t notice a thing.</p><p> </p><p>After having been briefly scattered to the winds of the party, the six of them were together again, and the next mission seemed to be a unanimous one. They were all getting hungry, and they wanted to get some of their favorite things, as they knew to expect them, before they were all gone. This being her first year of course, Maya didn’t know what to expect, but the others promised to show her what there was for her to find, and the way they talked about it alone made her want to try it all. So that was what she would do. They would split up, making sure that they would gather a little of everything, and then they would reunite for their feast.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0109"><h2>109. Their Holidays With Looting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas was always in her line of sight as they made their go at the tables where the food had been laid out. They were going to go at this in pairs, that was the plan. It wasn’t so much that they foresaw themselves as being turned away for taking what they wanted to have, but there was something to be said for serving themselves as though they needed to be covert about it.</p><p> </p><p>Asher and Dylan had gone first, and the other two pairs had stayed outside, each going along as though nothing was going on, waiting to get their go. Maya and Lucas were simultaneously looking out for ‘Team A’ and looking to see what Team C (or in Maya’s head, Team Z) was up to as they waited on their own. Only as she did so – which really was just as well – she spotted Isaiah Sr moving toward his son and his friend with a look that told Maya the man was also seeing something blooming between that pair. If he said anything, he might wreck it all.</p><p> </p><p>“Plan B, plan B,” she muttered to Lucas, grabbing him by the arm and moving him into the path of Zay’s father, with a quick aside to the Z’s (“Tag, you’re it.”) They found the man, and a look behind let her see Team A was out, with loaded plates, while the newly upgraded Team B went inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, hello, you two,” Isaiah Sr greeted them, not having noticed the beeline they’d made for him, by the looks of it. The man was tall and lean and looked so much like his son that there could be no better pair of people with one name to share. “Having a good time?” he asked, to her especially, as a new attendee.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah,” Maya spoke enthusiastically, maybe a bit too much, by the look on Lucas’ face. She tossed him a frown; she had this. “It’s a great party, great… Zay told me about it so long ago, but I had no idea. You do this every year?”</p><p> </p><p>For a couple of minutes, the man had proudly told her how, yes, they had these parties every year, had them since before he was born, that it was their great tradition, bigger even than any one holiday. Maya and Lucas both listened, but also kept an eye out for new Team B to be seen, so they would know they were in the clear. Finally, they saw them pass by, with another pair of loaded plates. They had to go now; the longer they made the others wait, the more likely they were to arrive and find the plates with a notably lighter load than they’d had when they’d first passed by.</p><p> </p><p>“We should go grab something to eat,” Lucas had told her, and with a quick parting, they left Isaiah Sr and went in to grab a couple plates and get loading.</p><p> </p><p>It was an overwhelming spread to say the least. There had to be a crazy amount of leftovers when the day was done. A part of Maya still considered the possibility of loading up some of it to bring home. But for now, she focused on her plate, which was to be shared with the others. Lucas had briefed her on what to aim for. He knew what to expect, the boys all did, so they all had their ‘assignments.’ Still, she would sneak a glance to him sometimes, passing questions with her eyes that he would answer in kind.</p><p> </p><p>It was all kind of… amusing. She definitely found it hard not to smile or laugh as she went, and she was about sure he was having the same situation.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we’ve got everything, yeah?” Maya asked, coming up to him like they were spies meeting in plain sight. He nodded, and they hurried out, making their way as carefully as they could with their plates. The conversation turned to his previous plate, the one which she’d taken from him and which had disappeared by the time they’d returned to it. They wondered where it could have gotten off to, if someone had snatched it for themselves, or if it had been tossed away… Lucas bet that one of the kids had probably taken it, in a bit of ‘you snooze, you lose.’</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing it’s a good thing we already went swimming, right?” she asked him, looking at their two plates and imagining the other four waiting for them not so far away.</p><p> </p><p>“Probably,” he agreed. “There,” he nodded when he spotted the others. They had gone to ‘hide’ in an empty corner of the yard, sitting in the shade of a tree. They hadn’t touched their plates yet, but as Maya had predicted, they all looked like the wait had been difficult.</p><p> </p><p>“Why’d you make us switch?” Nadine asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Zay’s dad was coming, I thought you’d never get away if he started talking,” Maya explained, giving Zay a look. The way he looked back at her, he had to have figured out what she’d actually sought to do. He looked relieved, thankful. “So, can we eat now?” she asked, looking at their collective loot. It was impossible not to salivate.</p><p> </p><p>“Dig in,” Lucas declared with a nod; they all did so at once.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0110"><h2>110. Their Holidays With Lunching</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya didn’t know what was best about this, the load of food she had at her disposal, which she’d been sampling bit by bit, or the fact that she was having it with her friends, all of them sitting together.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at Asher, who looked every bit like he should have been the loudmouth jock but was anything but. In a lot of ways, she guessed he was the one she’d had less in common with at the beginning. But then after the museum trip, finding out how much he knew about art, how much it actually was an interest of his… He’d been sharing that interest with her, and it had been something that brought them so much closer as friends. Right now he was telling them how his brother’s coming to their school in the fall was already turning into more of a thing than he’d anticipated, how he was starting to think this had to do with a girl more than anything else.</p><p> </p><p>Dylan, sat next to him, confirmed this speculation, which was no surprise. With him and Asher it was always one of two things, either complete agreement or disagreement, no middle ground. Maya had known for about as long as she’d known him that Dylan Orlando was the kind of guy that she would always be able to depend on. He would always be there for her, for any of them, as innocently selfless and loyal as one could be. When they’d had their falling out, she had found it almost too hard to imagine that it would come from him. She knew it hadn’t been what she’d thought, she’d found it out, and she was never going to doubt him ever again. And if she needed a goof, someone to make them laugh, he was there.</p><p> </p><p>She did her best not to look at Zay or Nadine too close, like she knew something might be close to happening, but it was easier said than done. They were two of her closest friends, and after watching the two of them over the past few months, she just had to know that this could actually work out. Zay had been the first one of them to speak to her, and she knew that was every bit a part of who he was, that he had that kind of openness in him, ready to welcome people into his life; he had done just that with her, but with Nadine, too, three years back. It had taken until that day, that moment when seeing her in that dress had made things click for him, and then he’d found what had been just there in front of him… Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>And then her… Nadine had been her one girl friend in Texas, and it would have been low to presume this would be all it took to make Maya want to have her as a friend. Nadine had needed her as much as Maya had done. There were just things she had had difficulty telling the boys. Hadn’t Nadine been the first she’d told about her father without their having guessed it the way Dylan had done? She was very much like her in some ways, and that might have gone a long way in helping Maya to settle in.</p><p> </p><p>She watched them now, sitting across from one another. Zay was being very pointedly focused on the food like he couldn’t manage to look up and not stare at something… someone. And Nadine, she would try and act cool, but Maya could see how her eyes would dart every so often, maybe hoping that their very own Babineaux would look her way, and when she would do this, she would look back down just as quick, frowning to herself, and Maya knew her enough to know what had to be going through her mind, that she was confused by what was happening now. Maya wanted to help, but she couldn’t. It had to be her, and she knew.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked to Lucas, sitting next to her. He would eat quietly, listening to the others, but also nudging for her to try one thing or another. She knew he was noticing the scene unfolding at either side of them, too, he had to, her partner in keeping their friends’ secret.</p><p> </p><p>Time and again it felt their paths didn’t just meet but crisscrossed, until he was there, in her mind, at every turn. Did she even need to stop and remember anymore? Lucas was Lucas, her Huckleberry friend. There was no doubt, reflecting on this first year in Texas, that she would have had a vastly different life if he hadn’t come into it. Her best friend was and would always be Riley Matthews, just as <em>his</em> best friend was and would always be Zay Babineaux, but Maya looked at Lucas, and he was her best friend in this place… and would always be.</p><p> </p><p>The six of them, sat under the tree’s shade, sharing in their loot of food, talking, laughing… It was the best moment of this whole summer, and she would not soon forget it. In a few weeks, they would be back in school, in eighth grade now, and it would be back into that rhythm for all those months, and Maya looked forward to it more than she’d looked forward to any other school year until now. Was it foolish to hold on to the belief that this could be another good one like she’d just had? She’d turned some things around she hadn’t thought possible before, but now…</p><p> </p><p>That was then, weeks away. Summer wasn’t over yet, and this party wasn’t over either. The plan was for her to enjoy both of those things. There was still food to be eaten, there were still laughs to be had, in the shade of their tree.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0111"><h2>111. Their Holidays With GiGi</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was no food left in sight, and sitting there in the cool summer shade, none of them looked likely to move for a while. It wasn’t until they heard the distinct shuffle of a cane thumping along that they started to look up.</p><p> </p><p>“You can’t possibly spend the rest of this beautiful day lying around like a bunch of sacks of potatoes,” GiGi called to them as she approached. Zay sprang up at once, moving to take a nearby chair and bringing it over for his great grandmother to sit with them. “Thank you, Sparky.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sparky?” Maya snorted, sitting up. Zay quickly protested that this was not a thing they needed to hear about, to which Maya responded by waving him off and asking the old woman to go on.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, when he was just a tot, crawling about the house, he would be obsessed with the outlets. We had them covered, of course, but they must have looked like odd little faces to him, like little friends. He would holler and cry whenever we’d take him away from there,” she laughed, tapping her great grandson’s arm with a smile. The boys had known about this already by the looks of them, while both girls burst into a fit of giggles.</p><p> </p><p>“GiGi, come on,” Zay begged to the woman, who gave him a frown that made him get his tone in check at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Isaiah, there is nothing for you to feel ashamed of. Your childhood has made you into the fine young man I see here today. Be proud of yourself, and nothing will ever get in your way, do you hear me? Sparky?” she spoke, pointing a bony finger at him. He nodded, and she patted his head with a smile. “Besides, I have plenty of stories I’m sure your friends would love to hear.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, I’m sure they don’t…” Zay would try to say, though the words would end up buried under the collected assurance from the other five who very much wanted to hear those stories.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, you do,” GiGi pressed her hands together. Looking at her, this sweet and petite old lady sitting among them like a regal storyteller, they could not have asked for more.</p><p> </p><p>She started to tell them these promised stories, much to her great grandson’s dismay, as they seemed to focus on his earliest years. Maya was so overwhelmingly amused by these revelations. As embarrassing as it might all have been for Zay, it was just so clear as she spoke that old GiGi loved him so dearly. She spoke about how he had taken so long to start crawling and walking, that he would just sit there for so long, looking at the world around him with no apparent hurry to get moving. She told them how she had coaxed him, for days and weeks, until finally he had gotten on his feet and then he had taken off.</p><p> </p><p>“What were they all like when they were little?” Maya found herself asking after a while. She hadn’t known them back then, and neither had Nadine; they were both curious. The boys looked uncertain, with the stories left to the hands of Zay’s GiGi; the woman was laughing.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, now they were still very much like the young men they have grown into. My Isaiah was a friendly little one, and Asher here would ask questions about everything, and Dylan, oh, he couldn’t get enough of my cookies,” she pointed to the boy, who sat to attention as though he expected to be handed those baked goods, which had the others laughing. “And Lucas, he was just as kind-hearted as he is now,” GiGi went on, giving him a look that told Maya that the woman, like his friends, never put the slightest weight to the opinions held by some people following his suspension. Lucas gave her a smile and a nod for that, and she gave a smile worthy of any great and loving grandparent toward a grandchild. “Of course, they were small, and unruly, and oddly talented in gathering up stains and cuts and bruises,” she went on, reigniting the laughs around the group.</p><p> </p><p>When she stood to return to the party, Zay quickly got up to go and escort his great grandmother along the path. GiGi called back as they started to walk, asking Nadine to come along with her, as she had something that she’d meant to pass to her to bring home to her mother. So, off the three of them went, leaving the others behind to gather up the empty plates and take them back. They had all digested a bit, sitting and listening as they had done, but now they were ready to spread out and get back into the party.</p><p> </p><p>Maya soon ended up running after Dylan and Asher and a few of the Babineaux cousins, while Lucas was once again recruited by young Will. She wasn’t sure where Zay or Nadine had ended up after following GiGi, but she didn’t think on it too much. The afternoon was wearing on, and wherever the day took her, she would follow. It seemed a karaoke machine had been set up in the yard and some of them were thinking of performing. Maya didn’t know yet if she would go so far as to join in, even though she had done a couple of the open mic nights at Chubbie’s now… But then again, maybe she <em>would</em> do it. This was a good day, and she could feel something on the air that felt a lot like… magic. And then Lucas was calling.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya? Maya!”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0112"><h2>112. Their Holidays With Wonders</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could barely believe his eyes, but he did know enough to know what he was seeing, and as soon as he did, the one thought he’d had was a clear one: he had to find Maya and bring her here. So, he took off running, dodging left and right like a player on a field until he could spot her.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya? Maya!” She was standing with some of the cousins near what would be the stage to the party’s karaoke performances. She turned at the sound of her name, and he stopped short, in front of her, before taking up her hand and leading her back the way he’d come.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah, easy!” she called to him as they went, as though she hadn’t just done this exact same thing a couple of hours ago. “Where are we going?”</p><p> </p><p>“Shh,” he instructed her as they stopped at the back door leading back into Aunt Susanne’s house. He pointed through the window. They could see across the kitchen and into the living room, and thankfully for them they found things much as Lucas had seen them right before he took off to find her.</p><p> </p><p>What Maya would see – if not hear – just as he’d seen, was both Zay and Nadine sitting on a couch. Neither of them was talking at the moment, and what they could see of their faces showed them as very… awkward. She was left to reach the same conclusion Lucas had done.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… oh, okay, good…” Was it actually going to happen, was <em>anything</em> about to happen? It sure looked like it, but they couldn’t be sure, could they?</p><p> </p><p>“What do we do?” Lucas asked, talking low as though he thought they might hear him.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you kidding? We can’t do anything now. What’s it going to do if we go in there, we’ll just shut them up.” It wasn’t so easy for her to even follow her own advice. She wanted to go in there, she wanted to make sure that it would all go alright for her friends, just give them one little nudge… “I have an idea,” she turned to Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>Taking off at a run, she returned to the makeshift stage, finding Zay’s uncle calling for any takers. Before anyone could raise their hands, she had volunteered, moving up to the machine, starting to quickly see if the song she had in mind would be available.</p><p> </p><p>“These speakers, are they very loud? Will they hear it everywhere, in the house and everything?” she asked. Just as the man had said yes, she’d found what she was looking for. “Good, alright,” she grabbed the microphone, facing the many members of the Babineaux family now looking toward her. “Hey, everyone,” she spoke out, trying to sound inviting and casual. “Maya, friend of Zay’s, happy to be here, let’s have some music!” There were a few claps of encouragement as the music started.</p><p> </p><p>It might have been the only song she could think of that had any chance of accomplishing what she wanted to do. Immediately when she’d had this thought, her mind had gone back to a Saturday back in September, her first time at Chubbie’s. She saw her friends on that dance floor, Nadine dancing around a baffled Zay. Her hope, as she began to sing along to the words lighting up, was that the memory of this small sort of goofy moment between the two of them would both get them talking and put them in a cheerful mood, enough to get them to just say what needed to be said.</p><p> </p><p>At the very least, the small crowd seemed to enjoy her singing and she could rightly assume that her voice would be loud enough to be carried into the house and to her friends. She would spot Lucas, still standing, looking over at her as she sang, but also sneaking the odd look back into the house. It dawned on her that this could backfire and draw her friends out of the house, so all she could tell herself was that maybe they would be too busy to notice it was her singing and all they would hear would be the song itself.</p><p> </p><p>As the song drew on, she knew she was only staring back at Lucas as she sang, and he was focusing on her more than the door, but she stayed on track, finishing out her song, completed to applause from her small audience. She gave a small bow before dashing off back to where Lucas stood.</p><p> </p><p>“Well?” she asked him. He looked at her, seeming sort of baffled, uncertain about what she was talking about. “How did it go?”</p><p> </p><p>“You were great,” he told her, and she briefly smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, but I’m talking about them,” she looked back through the door, then in the next moment reached for it and pulled it open, pulling him to come along as though they were headed inside, only to almost run into the exiting Zay and Nadine. “Oh, hey, there you are!” she greeted them, maybe a little too enthusiastically. Lucas quietly waved.</p><p> </p><p>“We heard you singing,” Nadine declared, breathing in, “That was you, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, just went for it,” she shrugged, looking at the two of them, trying to see if anything had happened, for better or for worse. “You should go, too,” she told Nadine, before looking at the both of them, “Unless you guys had something else in mind?” Lucas gave her a nudge, while Zay and Nadine looked at each other, and as far as Maya was concerned, that was all the confirmation she could need as to what had come to pass inside that house.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’ll go,” Nadine agreed, turning back to Maya and Lucas with a smile and a nod before heading toward the mini stage. They turned back to Zay, who looked at them for a moment, nodding in silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Little Z, wait up!” he called and ran after her, leaving Maya and Lucas to observe their friends off in the distance. Maya’s hand reached back, tapping his shoulder repeatedly until he stopped her, protesting.</p><p> </p><p>“Stop hitting me!”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not bruised,” she frowned. “And just look at them!” she pointed off to Zay and Nadine. He shrugged, and she sighed. “They talked. He knows, she knows, <em>they</em>… they’re… Well, I don’t know, but they know it now, they’re good…” she smiled, then, nodding to herself, “That made no sense, but you get what I’m saying.”</p><p> </p><p>“So… are they dating now, or…” Lucas slowly asked, earning himself a look from Maya that might have had someone else trembling. Lucas only shrugged. “I don’t know it any more than you do, okay? What do we do now?”</p><p> </p><p>“Now? Nadine’s going to sing, we’re going to listen and the party’s not over, so there’s that. That’s… kind of all we can do right now, right?” The two of them out there just felt like fragile little animals they would spook if they approached too fast. Until they said anything, they really could not do anything, she didn’t think…</p><p> </p><p>That was what the rest of the afternoon had been, and the evening that had followed, with all of them there at the Babineaux family’s summer party. All potential developments aside, it had been a great day, and by the end of it, when her mother came to pick her up, Maya was half asleep on her feet, but in the happiest of ways.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother was driving all of them home except Zay, and as they went, Maya looked around the car and she started to think, as she had done so many times before, especially in happier events, about her old friends, the ones missing from the happiness of those days. She thought of them, and she missed them, and she hoped for them… so much. She hoped for Riley, for Farkle… She squeezed her eyes shut and behind her eyes they were with her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0113"><h2>113. Her Change for Year Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya woke up this morning, knowing she was going back to school… and she was glad. One year ago, it was anything but that, and remembering this made her once more aware of the changes she’d gone through, as much as it reminded her that in a matter of days it would have been a year since she’d come to Texas. It didn’t seem possible to her, but it was… Almost a year since she’d been in New York, since she’d seen her friends…</p><p> </p><p>She reached for her phone, looking through her messages. The night before, Farkle had written her, saying he wished she would be there, and something in the tone of his words had felt like he wasn’t anxious to return to school, which had made her worry for him. How could it be right that Farkle Minkus didn’t feel like he was bursting with excitement at the thought of going to school… and <em>she</em> did? She sent him a message back this morning, wishing him a good day, promising that she would call him that afternoon and they would talk.</p><p> </p><p>Riley, on the other hand, had been overly cheerful in recent messages – which was saying a lot – but also just a bit evasive about what she was up to, and that had put a whole different kind of worry in Maya. Was she keeping things from her? Was the distance, the year, now starting to create parts of her life that were so removed from her that she didn’t want to share them?</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t want to think that, and the last few months had not felt that way either. Even though she still hadn’t gotten to go back and see her, they had been in as good of a place as they could ever hope to be, minding their situation. They’d been talking or writing almost every day, and it had felt like the return of something, but now…</p><p> </p><p>The best she could do for now was to write her and tell her that she was going to call Farkle that night, and if she could be there, too, they could have something all of them together.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re awake, good,” her mother appeared at her bedroom door, that cheerful smile on her face making Maya smile back. “If you get ready quick, we can go out for breakfast before you head to school.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya didn’t have to be told twice. In no time, they were on their way to the diner. As they walked, Maya was anxious to get to see her friends, as though they hadn’t all just hung out the day before. But this was different, wasn’t it? They were going back to the way it had been before, the way they had been when she’d first arrived.</p><p> </p><p>It was all going to be different, of course, one year on. She wasn’t new anymore, their friendship was good and fortified, never to be doubted again but also changed – in the best of ways for some and curious for others – in recent weeks. It hadn’t been an immediately public thing, after the party at Aunt Susanne’s house, and it had taken a little over a week really, but eventually it had been put out there that Zay and Nadine were now together, if in a bit of an exploratory manner.</p><p> </p><p>They weren’t going so far as to calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend at the time, and the revelation to the rest of the group had been triggered out of a need to figure out how they were meant to do this without screwing it up, and doing the same to their circle in the process if it did get screwed up. Asher and Dylan, who had zero clue that this had been brewing up at all, had been at a loss as to how they might help. Even now, they found it strange to see the two of them together. Lucas had done what he could, telling them it would go fine, and Maya believed it, too, but still her advice had been to not listen to them. It was going to come from them, she believed it.</p><p> </p><p>Ultimately, she’d had it right. There had been a brief period of what she called their training wheel days, where they looked like they didn’t know just how to move around each other, but then balance had been reached. By now, they were for the most part just as they had been, Z and Z, goofing off. But then they would sit or stand next to each other, and you could see it. One or the other would reach for a hand to hold and would find it and a waiting smile. The first time they had taken that step into calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, it had brought out a startled but bashful smile and a fit of giggles, respectively.</p><p> </p><p>“Going to be a great day,” her mother told her as they sat to their breakfast, and Maya shrugged. “It will,” her mother insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I know, I mean… I think it will be good, too, I do. I don’t know about ‘great’ yet,” she explained. It would have seemed too forward to think as much.</p><p> </p><p>“It will be great, Maya. I’m putting my money on it. You’ll see.” She seemed so certain about it that Maya had trouble denying it to her. And maybe she was right, maybe it <em>would</em> be great. She couldn’t know, not until she’d lived it.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine. But if it’s not great, will you be paying up?” Maya teased, and her mother gave a confident nod. “Well now I don’t know what I want, a great day or the pay out,” she teased, and her mother gave a shrug and sipped her coffee.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0114"><h2>114. Her Change For Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After breakfast, her mother had accompanied her to the bus stop, where they’d gone their separate ways. Once she’d gotten <em>on</em> the bus, that was when it had finally started to feel like it was happening. She was on her way to school. She got out and walked the rest of the way, and before she knew it, she was sitting on the steps, just as she’d done for so many mornings before, waiting for her friends to arrive.</p><p> </p><p>Not ten minutes had gone by before she spotted Lucas walking up. He held up his hand in greeting before he came bounding up the steps and dropped down to sit at her side with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Aren’t you hopping today, Huckleberry,” she remarked, chuckling at how he looked so upbeat; it seemed to be going around his morning.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I guess… Blondie?” he squinted as though he was trying something out. She turned to him, frowning back. “No?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Alright, I’ll think of something e… What are you doing?” he asked when she reached out and put her hand over his forehead. She pulled back.</p><p> </p><p>“Checking for a fever,” she teased. “Not finding one though. So, what’s got you like this, there has to be something, because I’ve never seen you like… this,” she gestured at him. Again, he shrugged. She guessed she could sort of get it; hadn’t she woken up a little more on the optimistic side today? By her standards, it might not have been so drastic, but maybe this was just how he presented with this extra kick.</p><p> </p><p>If she needed any more proof, there were the others. Nadine had come up next, like an unmanned rocket flying toward them. She revealed that Zay had texted her to say he’d meet them in class because he needed to go to the office about something first. It was still the funniest thing to see the way her face brightened at the mention of him now.</p><p> </p><p>Then there had been Dylan and the Garcia twins. Asher’s brother Joey was hard to situate as far as how much he might resemble his brother. Physically speaking, they <em>were</em> identical, but beyond that it did sort of felt the way two identical pieces of clothing might look completely different, depending on who wore them. Asher had never exactly been a wild man kind of guy but, compared to his brother, he might as well have been. For as long as she’d known him, Joey Garcia had always been a painfully shy, soft spoken boy. Anyone who didn’t know them might have pegged <em>him</em> as the bookworm and scholar of the two. And sure, he was very smart, too, but both of them would admit Asher as being the more knowledgeable twin. Joey, as far as she knew, was in no way athletic, where his brother was. But he liked to build things, he’d shown them, not inventing, just sort of putting the pieces together. His room was filled with model trains.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Joey,” Nadine greeted him first, Maya and Lucas both echoing this a moment later. He nodded, and Maya thought she heard a quiet ‘hey.’</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll show him around real quick, until his friends show up, I’ll be right back,” Asher told them before moving off with his brother. Dylan sat down in the steps, and Maya reached out to give his head a tap. He gave a bright grin, and she laughed. It looked like the optimistic bug hadn’t left him untouched either.</p><p> </p><p>“Why did Zay have to go to the office?” Maya asked Nadine as they waited around. She shrugged, didn’t know.</p><p> </p><p>“All he said was that he’d come and meet us as soon as he could.” Maya turned to Lucas, but he only mimicked Nadine in giving a shrug to show he didn’t know what had brought Zay in to see the principal. “He didn’t sound like he was in trouble or anything,” Nadine added.</p><p> </p><p>A few minutes more went by, and Asher came back out to meet them, now without his brother. He sat down next to Dylan, explaining how he’d ‘handed off’ Joey to his friends. He had been uncertain about what it would be like to have his twin there at their school, and now that the first day had started, even before <em>classes</em> had started, he looked like he had found that it might be strange, awkward.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be alright,” Maya tapped him on the shoulders. “And if not, then we’ll just have to come up with a new story to pass around the school about you two switching places… or say you have a triplet, really mix them up. My mother has access to a lot of costumes…” He chuckled, and the Joey issue was dropped.</p><p> </p><p>The five of them got up from the steps and started back toward the school. Maya looked up at the building, thinking about the first time she’d walked through those doors, how alien it had all felt. But this was just her school now, and she walked through its doors with a wave of confidence that made her think the others really had something with this burst of optimism. Maybe she could give it a shot, too. Her mother <em>had</em> promised her that this would be a great day.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0115"><h2>115. Her Change For Plans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She opened her locker door, quickly setting in a few items from her bag, some from last year, some from the summer, photos, mementos… It felt like moving in, and soon she all set again, her books pushed inside before she could pull out the ones which she would need for her first class. They had their classes together again, which had been a relief as soon as they’d found out.</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s teaching history now?” Lucas asked as he and Nadine came and rejoined her. “It doesn’t say,” he pointed out, showing his schedule and the blank space where Mr. Jiménez’ replacement should have been listed. Maya couldn’t believe none of them had picked up on this yet.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe they haven’t found anyone yet,” she shrugged. “We don’t have it today anyway. Or they didn’t know when they made the schedules.” She paused for a moment, as she was hit with the sort of self realization that she was going to miss Mr. Jiménez. He had been old, and demanding, but he had given them good projects, interesting, creative… She was going to miss all of it.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s try outs for the girls’ basketball team, I think I’m going to do it,” Nadine told Maya. “Maybe you could do it, too, we could be on the team together.” Maya thought about this for a moment. On the one hand, she didn’t know that she cared about it <em>that</em> much. She loved playing with her friends, she did, but did she want to dedicate this time to a team? On the other hand, it could have been fun to have this, to join Nadine. If she were going to go out there anyway, she could be a player. Then if it were the both of them, she would have someone.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know if they’d actually pick me,” she shrugged and in a second Nadine was hugging her like she’d said yes. “Fine, I’ll try, I’ll try,” she rolled her eyes with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Then they’ll be on one team,” Nadine motioned to the boys, “And we’ll be on the winning one.” Maya laughed, seeing the grin on Nadine and the frown on the boys. “Prove me wrong,” Nadine told them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we will, we will,” Asher tossed back, just as playfully as she did. “So, I guess we’re going to Dylan’s after school, right? Do some practice?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, boys or girls, we’ll all be playing for the same school,” Dylan declared with a beaming smile. “We need to help each other.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dylan, you are too good for this world,” Maya told the boy, giving him a side hug before moving to shut her locker door. “Never change. Your house it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re still doing movie nights, right?” Lucas asked. They hadn’t missed one in weeks. Some of them had missed a Friday or two, but there had been a movie night every week.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should,” Asher replied, joined by nods from the others. “We might have to hold them a different time depending on practices and games?” There was nothing more for them to do on that matter until they knew what those schedules would look like. Maya already felt that this year was shaping up around her, different from the one before but also making her get even more optimistic for the future. It was a feeling she still hadn’t found a way to get used to. Maybe one day it would stop feeling like a trap for suckers.</p><p> </p><p>“Science first thing Monday morning though,” she sighed as they started on their way to class. It was one of those classes where she did well, more or less, but then it would require so much more effort out of her than any of the other classes for her to do well enough. And then it would just make her think about Farkle, who would get so excited just walking into that room he’d be dancing… It made her miss him more. She would try and channel him, as though that would be enough to make her some science genius, which of course it couldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at her phone. No new message, from him <em>or</em> from Riley. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket with a sigh, and a moment later she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked back to find Lucas was looking at her with that concerned look of his. She smiled, shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Thinking about your friends?” he asked, and she wished she knew how he knew that, as much as she wished she could say she was fine. She was, for the most part, but there was always that glancing blow of reminiscing and homesickness. She hadn’t given it too much thought, but first day of school and all… of course it would sting.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she simply replied.</p><p> </p><p>“I bet they’re thinking about you, too,” he said, and it did make her feel just a bit better. “One of these days, when you call them, maybe we could all be there, say hello and all that,” he went on to suggest.</p><p> </p><p>“That would be good,” she told him, and she really meant it. The thought of her old and new friends coming together had been a common one to her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0116"><h2>116. Her Change For Rhythm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Filing into their science classroom, Maya was at the back of the group, and by the time she made it to find her spot, she was sliding on to a stool at Lucas’ side. Nadine was on her own behind them, while Asher and Dylan had paired up behind her. It wasn’t their usual seating arrangement, but then the set up had always varied in this class.</p><p> </p><p>For the second year in a row, their science teacher would be Mrs. Brown, and Maya still remembered what Zay had told her, the first time they’d come into this class. Before she had ever seen the woman, he had asked if she was familiar with the Back to the Future movies. She was, and Zay’s belief that their teacher was very aptly named became clear once she came along. The white, mildly unruly hair, coupled with the enthusiasm and love she had for science <em>did</em> vaguely remind Maya of the old Doc of the same name.</p><p> </p><p>Once again, just like when she’d woken up that morning, and when she’d come to school, she felt eager for the day to begin properly. Maybe it was that she and her mother had come to Texas and she’d almost immediately started coming here, but she felt good. Maybe it was that she had slowly rediscovered herself in these halls, that she’d found all her friends here… In a way, she’d spent more time here than in her own house, and she couldn’t forget it; she already didn’t want to think about next year, leaving this place for the high school. Lucas had showed it to her once. It was going to become familiar in time, she knew, but for now it was just one more displacement. Why she had to worry herself over it when it was a year away was just beyond her.</p><p> </p><p>For now, she had the eighth grade to concern herself with, and she had it well in mind that she would continue on the path she had started to follow. She would come out on the other side with just as much pride in herself as she had gained in this first year, maybe more if it was possible.</p><p> </p><p>The first time she’d come into Mrs. Brown’s science class, she had no desire to be in Texas, much less this school, couldn’t believe she might ever come to love that she now lived here. It wasn’t even about feeling guilty about it anymore, that she might have been ‘betraying’ New York. This was her home now, and it would continue to be, so treating it as anything else might have been more of a disservice to her new home than her old one.</p><p> </p><p>It wouldn’t be said that she didn’t miss New York anymore, didn’t yearn to see it again, more times than she could count. It hadn’t been a year yet, and if she tried to call back certain places out there… it was growing blurry. Some places were completely gone. She was thankful for the drawings she’d made before they’d left the city now more than ever. She would look at them and they would take her back, fill in the spaces that might have grown blurred. They felt like pieces of the past that she had carried in her bag, clear across the country.</p><p> </p><p>Her drawings of her friends carried that same sort of precious power. She would look at them, and she would be taken with memories of them, too.</p><p> </p><p>They knew she had found a home in Austin now, and to know that they were happy for her, it made it all better. Now she was here this morning, getting into the rhythm of her new life again, and she still carried them with her. She looked at her phone again. No new messages. It was alright, they would be at school, too, having their own first days, but it still felt like she would have felt even better for knowing they were out there, thinking of her for the space of one message read and replied to.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Lucas’ voice brought her out of her thoughts, and she turned to him, slipping her phone back in her pocket. Again, he had seen through her in a minute, and again she shrugged it off. It wasn’t a big deal, wouldn’t be unless she treated it as one.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s your mom liking the painting?” she asked. It had taken her most of the summer to finish it, working at it little by little. She wanted to make it perfect, knowing that it was for Mrs. Friar, and that she intended to pay her for it Maybe it was that having her job at the diner over the summer had made her appreciate what she accomplished… or maybe it was that it was for her, and for <em>him</em>, too, that it would go into their home. She’d wanted to give it the same attention she had given her mother’s painting, and the one she’d made for Riley, too. That one continued to sit in her room, waiting for the time when she might get to give it to her in person, the way Shawn had suggested it.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you kidding? She loves it. People come over, she pulls them over to see, tells them it was done by an ‘up and coming young artist,’” he explained, and hearing the way he imitated his mother’s tone, she grinned as much as she blushed.</p><p> </p><p>Mrs. Brown came into the class, as she often did, barely paying attention to them just yet. She would come in, set up for the day’s class, then sit at her desk with her tea and crosswords. They were in the clear to keep on talking for a while longer.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0117"><h2>117. Her Change For the Future</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Already she was making plans for this new year in Texas, and it left her pondering what she might want out of it. She had already marked that as a dangerous idea, but today she might have felt daring enough to consider it; just this once, she could make an exception, right?</p><p> </p><p>School, that much she had already considered long and hard. Do better, like before. Now she might also have basketball to factor in, but she was confident that way. Friends, well she had these five, and if she still had all of them by the end of it then what more could she ask for? No, she wouldn’t ask for herself, to get something, but she could wish for them. She’d wish for Dylan to keep being his goofy, carefree self. She’d wish for Asher to find peace with having his brother in school with him. She’d wish for Nadine to get on the team, for Zay to find if he still wanted to try out acting as he had told them, and she’d wish for the both of them to be happy together. She’d wish for Lucas…</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him, sitting next to her. She had a wish for him, too, she did. But the words failed her, trying to set them around that wish, like she couldn’t see it clear enough yet. All she could do was smile at him when he found her looking at him. He asked if she’d wanted to say something.</p><p> </p><p>“Not yet,” she declared, leaving him with a puzzled look.</p><p> </p><p>She had wishes aplenty for her friends in New York. She wanted Farkle to still be the boy she had last seen back there, even if they were all growing. She wanted to know that this spirit he had in him would be there for as long as they lived. And she wanted the same for Riley, too, she guessed. But she was her best friend, and her presence in her life had been so diminished in the last year that sometimes it just didn’t feel real. What kind of world was it when she didn’t have Riley Matthews there by her side? She couldn’t say for sure when she’d get to go and see her again, but she made one wish for herself here and it was for this separation not to last for much longer.</p><p> </p><p>School, friends… and there was home, of course. There was her mother, and the two of them together. Their year in Texas had emerged as the most unexpected and wonderful one for as long as she could remember, and she felt it could only get better moving forward. Of course, there was them, but there was also… the other thing.</p><p> </p><p>The memory of those two weeks of Shawn Hunter being in Austin with them still felt like it could have been a dream if she didn’t have the evidence of it. She had the pictures she had taken with his camera, some of them on her walls, some in a box in her room, and one now in her locker at school. Since the day he’d left to go back home, they had all continued much as they’d done before, although she now counted an increase in the times he had called or written, to her and to her mother both. It had dawned on her there might have been times before when she had wrongly assumed her mother had been talking to Hildy when she’d actually been talking to Shawn. For certain, her mother was more open about it now, and Maya was glad.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn made her mother happy. Knowing that, what else could she ask for? Well there was still plenty for her to do, of course. It wasn’t enough for her to be happy now, not when it could end. She didn’t want it to end. She realized what this could mean, for her mother and for her, and it was a fretful sort of prospect, the kind that could rise to challenge her ability to be hopeful on this one day, but she had to face it head on. Whatever came next for all three of them, she couldn’t get scared, she wouldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she reached and pulled it out, finding Farkle’s reply. It was strange, stranger than what she had previously expected out of him. All he had to say on the matter of her calling him and Riley that afternoon was that they would ‘figure it out later.’ She wrote back, asking what he meant, if he and Riley had gotten into a fight or something. As she sent her message, she sat staring blankly at her screen for a long beat. Was it possible? No, it couldn’t be, not them, not when she was so far away, and she couldn’t do anything to help either of them directly. She couldn’t sit here with this, all day, but then what other choice did she have? She was in Austin, and they…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Lucas tapped her arm and she turned to him. He had his phone in hand, too, and after a second, she put hers back in her pocket. “Can we talk out in the hall?” There were a few minutes left until class started.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m fine,” she told him.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he nodded, then, “Can we talk out in the hall? Please?” Finally, she got up, and she followed him out of science class as he stuck his phone in his pocket. They turned left, and for a moment they walked in silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are we going?” she thought to ask when she realized they seemed to be headed somewhere.</p><p> </p><p>“I just want to see what Zay’s up to out there,” he said, and silence hung on a moment more. “What’s going on with your friends?” he asked, and she let out a breath. Of course, he’d know.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0118"><h2>118. Her Change For Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they walked, Maya reminded herself of a promise she had set on her own self, months before. To Lucas she not only could be honest, but she should and she would. He was a touchstone, and she needed that. So she told him about her concerns for her friends, their strange messages that made her feel trapped in her distance from them.</p><p> </p><p>He listened, and the silence let her notice they had slowed to a stop in the hallways. He looked back at her like he wanted to say something to help, but he didn’t know what. After a moment, she started trailing her feet, moving forward at the lightest pace, as though to tell him to never mind and just keep going.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure it’s not as bad as it feels,” he finally said, and she turned back, pacing her way back to him. “I know how much they mean to you… Nothing gets you worked up more than your friends… I’ve seen it.” She knew he was right, or as much as he could be. It didn’t get her any closer to not feeling the way she did. “It’ll sort itself out, Maya. They’re starting today, too, right? I’m sure they just feel weird for the same reason that <em>you</em> do. They miss you, and you miss them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m not there with them to do anything. If I was out there… I’d call bay window, and we would go and sit, Riley and me, and we’d talk. And Farkle would just show up… sooner or later… and then we would all just be better again. Out here, it doesn’t feel like I can do anything,” she sighed.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, you can,” he assured her. “You’ll find a way, you always do… it’s one of the best things about having you as a friend,” he went on, and her face felt trapped between a frown and a smile. “You’re going to call me Huckleberry again, aren’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Thinking about it, yeah,” she tipped her head. “But now I really am curious to see if you’re right about the other thing, too.” He nodded; he thought he was right, of course. “Alright, take it easy there, Hu… Now, see, you said it already, so <em>I</em> can’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, won’t happen again,” he vowed, smiling with something like pride, and she laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’ve just found what’s one of the best things about having <em>you</em> as a friend,” she told him, and she was surprised at how easily the statement was spoken. It seemed like not so long ago it would have felt too open to come out of her. That wasn’t so now, and what she got in return was a brand new sort of smile out of him. That smile left her something, too.</p><p> </p><p>It left her with a brand new set of butterflies, tucked away deep in her stomach. They were unexpected, unknown and so completely unexplainable. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop and think about all this, not here or now. So she blinked and briefly looked away before turning back to him, racking her mind for something to change the subject.</p><p> </p><p>“We should probably hurry up if we’re going to get Zay before class starts, come on,” she breathed, moving down the hall. He followed, and the strange butterflies followed, too. She reached in her pocket for her phone, for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything?” he asked, but she shook her head. “They’re probably in class.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, probably,” she nodded slowly, though she kept her phone tight in her hand for now.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was this day that had her like this. This day her mother had promised would be a great one, this day of excitement, of renewal and possibilities… Now she was here, and the next evolution of this day had taken form in the shape of tiny, made-up creatures in the pit of her stomach whenever she so much as felt the presence of his arm next to hers as they walked. She didn’t understand what was coming over her.</p><p> </p><p>“Fall Festival will be starting again soon,” she latched on as they passed the sign on the wall. “A year ago, almost, they’d all been out there, and as strange and different as Texas had still felt then, she had nonetheless found her first bit of proper ease right there. This year would be different, it would be better.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he nodded, and she knew he was anxious for it, too. “The crazy thing is, we weren’t sure if we were going to go last year. Then you came, and we decided to go. And this year…” He nodded again. This year they would go, too, gladly so.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” she asked. “If you don’t want to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course I’m sure,” he promised. Maya let it go, accepting truth, and she put her phone back in her pocket as they neared the office, promising herself, daring herself, not to look again until lunch time.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was about to ask Lucas what he thought had been the reason Zay had been called into the principal’s office that morning, when classes – and so the year itself – hadn’t even started yet, but the question was forgotten as he stepped out of the office, and Maya and Lucas came to a stop.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0119"><h2>119. Her Change For Everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya knew she was wide awake, but still for a moment she stood in place, thinking for sure she must be dreaming. She reached out her hand, until she could prod the shoulder of the girl standing next to Zay with a similar look of shock, of rising hope. On contact, they both startled, and their eyes met, slowly slipping beneath a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re here? How are you here?” Maya asked, tears rising in her eyes the moment she spoke, and once <em>that</em> happened, she didn’t need to wait on the answer. She only had to reach out and pull her best friend in her arms and hold on to her as tight as she was held by her. If it were up to her, she would never let go again.</p><p> </p><p>“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Riley revealed, with tears in her voice, too. Maya could have forgotten school, and class, and the guys, until Zay finally spoke up.</p><p> </p><p>“I knew who she was the second I saw her,” he said, with pride in his tone, “I was wondering why you hadn’t told us about this. The Principal called on me to be a new student guide again, finally get my turn, and then I find out it’s your friend. Small world…”</p><p> </p><p>“New student?” Maya pulled back at once, looking at Zay before turning back to Riley, looking into her face in search of answers. What she found there was her barely contained smirk.</p><p> </p><p>And all of a sudden, her strange morning and stranger messages started to line up and make sense. Riley’s evasive joy… and Farkle’s sudden loneliness… Riley knew she was coming, and Farkle was sad that she was going.</p><p> </p><p>“You…” She had it right there, but it seemed too good to be true, to think that Riley was here, that she might be staying, her family… Another piece jammed into place, and maybe it could be true. Riley confirmed it for her.</p><p> </p><p>“My mom heard from yours that there was an opening for a history teacher here. Her law firm has an office here, too, and… here we are…” she shrugged, and Maya had forgotten how invigorating it could be to see that smile in person. She hugged her again, and Riley did the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys?” Zay spoke after a beat. “Class is going to start. Sweet reunion, might need to move it along.”</p><p> </p><p>“More of this later, okay?” Maya whispered at Riley’s ear before pulling back again.</p><p> </p><p>This was so strange. For how long she’d been imagining her friends together, old and new, to actually see Riley standing next to Zay, the two of them sharing a look, and a conversation earlier… It was as strange as it was thrilling, it was… a great day… like her mother had promised. She’d known about this, hadn’t she? What else could the day of her best friend’s return to her be except greater than great?</p><p> </p><p>“So… you’ve met Zay,” she nodded to him. “And this is Lucas,” she tipped her head to the boy at her side. She watched Riley’s eyes move over to him before going wide and down in a blink. Maya may not have seen Riley for almost a year, but it didn’t mean she didn’t know her anymore. She could still know when it was time to bail her out. “Let’s get to class,” she grasped Riley’s hand and led her down the hall.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m her guide, Maya, come on…” she could hear Zay complaining as the guys followed them toward Mrs. Brown’s science class. She had to assume she was headed to the same place if they’d assigned Zay as her guide.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll get her back to you later,” Maya told him, turning back to Riley. She was holding on to her arm and looking around, taking in her surroundings, and at once Maya just felt like another piece of her was returning, winding its way back into place. It <em>had</em> been almost a year of her living without it though, and she had to learn and deal with how overwhelming it could be, and also how she had missed it.</p><p> </p><p>It was a lot to process all at once. Riley was here now, it was real. She was here, she was staying. It was going to change everything. Their group of six, as it had been, would become a group of seven, or she had to assume it would. The others would welcome her, wouldn’t they?</p><p> </p><p>She stole a glance back to the boys, walking behind them as they were headed to class. They didn’t seem bothered. They almost looked excited and, knowing them, they might just have been excited <em>for her</em>, for her having gotten her friend back. Would they be okay with her coming in this way? Of course, they would, why wouldn’t they? They’d done the same for her last year, hadn’t they? This would be no different, and of course they <em>knew</em> Riley, sort of… She’d told them so much about her.</p><p> </p><p>But would their dynamics change too much? They had their routine going, all of them. There were six of them, it was a good number, easily and evenly split in more than one way. For the first time it left her to wonder what things had been like for them when there had been only five of them, before she’d arrived. What had their routine been like then? Had she disrupted <em>that</em> one? Had they abandoned anything for her sake?</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t stop looking at her, as though the hand she held wasn’t enough to confirm that she was really there. It was hard not to think she might not be really here unless she made sure that she was, so she did, and every time it would give her a jolt. It was still so new, and she knew that they’d need to have a proper talk later, when they weren’t on their way to class. How was she going to focus on anything else though? Her best friend was here… She didn’t imagine Riley would do any better in that department, but then they had no choice. Hopefully as the day progressed the shock would wear off and they would figure out where to go next, the two of them, and the seven of them…</p><p> </p><p>All morning she’d been caught up in thinking about the past year and the one to come, and now… Whatever she’d been thinking about, what if she had to start again? Having Riley here, it would be a game changer, in more ways than one. She would do her best to help her transition in this place, of course. Zay may have been her guide, but she was her… well, Peaches. And Peaches had to look out for her wide-eyed Honey, keep her from wandering off.</p><p> </p><p>It felt like she might be forced to sacrifice any number of things, but then would she really? She’d been reflecting on her new life here in Austin, and how good it had been, and how much better it could get. She still wanted all that, and somehow… Somehow, she’d have to find some happy medium. If it meant having her best friend as part of her new life all over again, well then, she couldn’t wait to start.</p><p> </p><p>She soon understood Zay had texted Lucas to get her to see Riley before class started. He told her how he’d gotten to the office and found her there, thinking he’d seen her before. And when he’d heard her name and recognized it, he had given her <em>his</em> name and <em>she </em>had recognized it, too, from Maya telling her about him. So, he’d made the connection and texted Lucas, and now here they were.</p><p> </p><p>“You should sit with her,” Lucas told her as they reached the classroom door. She was going to ask if he was sure, but he was already nodding. “I’ll get on the next table over, I won’t be far,” he promised, and she smiled, in amusement and in gratitude.</p><p> </p><p>The introductions to the others had to be brief for the time being, as class was about to start. Riley was presented to the stunned but welcoming Nadine, Asher, and Dylan, and then they were called to take their seats for the start of class.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0120"><h2>120. Her Friend in Class</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As she’d expected, morning classes had been made hard to focus on now that Riley had been thrown into the mix. Their first science class, thankfully, had been on the lighter side, with Mrs. Brown getting them to remember where they had left off at the end of the previous year. Maya would be drawn to look over at Riley, knowing she hadn’t been there last year, not with them. But she seemed to be doing alright, so there was that to count on at least.</p><p> </p><p>Maya would also find herself looking across the aisle, to where Lucas had moved. She’d been looking forward to having him as her partner now, but he’d known it would have to be this way, and it did. She needed to look out for Riley, and he got that. She had gone through the move last year, and now it was Riley who did, and she’d need her best friend. But Lucas… and her…</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t think it would disappoint her so much, to not have him next to her. But it did, she knew it did, because for how much she was made overwhelmingly giddy by Riley’s presence, that sentiment of loss was able to break through and be felt. She missed having him next to her, to talk to all through class. She would look at him every so often, as he worked with David Ramos, another of their classmates, and it would feel just… wrong. He was supposed to be next to her.</p><p> </p><p>Class had finally ended though, and they all gathered their things, got up and headed out of class. Immediately, Zay had swooped in to lead Riley away in order to show her around a bit on their way to their next class, performing his guide duties with pride. This had taken away Maya’s first chance to get to speak with her friend at any length.</p><p> </p><p>In their next class, which would be Spanish, the rearrangement of the seats was once again enacted. Up until not too long ago, they had foreseen that they would keep the order from the year before, with Lucas, Maya, and Zay taking the top seats from the row on the far right, and then Nadine, Asher, and Dylan taking those of the next row over. That was fine when there had been six of them, but there were seven of them now. Maya would want to keep Riley close, of course, and while they were at it, Zay and Nadine did want to sit closer to one another than they did before, while Zay also wanted to be kept close to his ‘charge.’</p><p> </p><p>By the time class started, the top of the far-right rows was occupied by Zay and Nadine, with Riley and Maya directly behind them and Asher and Lucas directly behind <em>them</em>, and Dylan next to these two, on the third seat of the third row from the window. It would take some getting used to, but it was for the most part ideal. Maya was finding it strange to have to turn to find Lucas when he’d been in front of her the whole last year, to have Zay in front, and Nadine directly in front, too, Asher behind, and Dylan so far away all of a sudden. But looking to her right she would find Riley, and <em>that</em> at least had been a return to what she’d known before, back in New York. It made her think of Mr. Matthews, who would soon be her teacher again… That could be the weirdest change of all.</p><p> </p><p>But that was going to be another day, and for now, all she had to rely on was the continuing inability to get much of any conversation with Riley. In class, of course, it was impossible, and when second period ended, again, Guide Babineaux halted her efforts, until there really wasn’t enough time to warrant an attempt at talking. So, Maya had to wait. She had resigned herself to wait until lunch. If Zay even tried anything, she would have to put her foot down; she couldn’t have Riley there and not talk to her forever, she just couldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, it was almost lunch time, and as she sat in class, waiting for English to be over, she leaned back, her elbow coming to rest on Lucas’ desk, though she paid it little mind, even as she turned to look at him, still getting used to his altered position. He looked back at her, giving her a look that she interpreted as his being equally thrown by the position change. Maya herself was the only one of them to have kept her seat, but that could only be because they had all changed seats, and that in itself made her spot feel as though she must have moved, too.</p><p> </p><p>Despite all this – her added friend, her displaced friends – she was back in school, and as had been the case in the previous year, after a while, she was comfortable. Maybe a part of her had thought it would all be shown to be a fluke, but it wasn’t, and it made her feel like she could breathe a little easier. She hadn’t imagined it.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at Riley again. She hadn’t really told her about this change she’d experienced, but then she hadn’t really told anyone, had she? The difference now was that Riley was bound to notice some change in her, wasn’t she? And once she did then what would she say? Maya didn’t know why it mattered to her, but it did. She was afraid that Riley would inadvertently give rise to the old Maya, and all the habits and behaviors <em>she</em> held in her bag of tricks. Would it all seem so weird to her? She wasn’t going to bring it up, not unless she had to, yeah… The bell rang, and now at last it was lunch time.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0121"><h2>121. Her Friend in Talks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had told her that they would go ahead and find a table for the group, and Maya gave him a nod, knowing what he’d meant underneath this. They’d get the table, and she could go and talk with Riley for a while before joining them. So, she took her friend by the hand and hurried her off to sit on a bench just outside school.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait to see your house,” Riley spoke with a wide smile. “It’s so small on the screen. We’re going to sit in your bay window, and it’ll be just like you never left, and it’ll be great…” Maya could only smile back, even though she knew Riley wouldn’t be right about this one. Try as they might, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, it couldn’t be, and she saw it already. It wasn’t a bad thing, and it wasn’t their fault. They’d been apart all this time, and they needed to find how to be around each other again. Riley wasn’t seeing it yet, and Maya didn’t want to take that away from her.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re okay about all this, right? Being here?” Riley nodded at once, like she didn’t need to think about it at all. “Riley, you left your hometown, everything you know. I’ve been through that, I know how it feels, and I get that you’re happy to see me but that doesn’t erase everything, does it?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it doesn’t,” she admitted. Maya waited, looking at Riley as she considered her response. She had changed, they had both changed. It felt like she couldn’t read her the way she used to do. She’d been coming to that realization for a long time, but to have it happen in the flesh only drove that point deeper. “When they said we were going to move, I sort of… lost it.” At least this much Maya could imagine just clear as day, and it should not have made her smile, but it sort of did.</p><p> </p><p>“But you’re so calm,” she played, and Riley couldn’t even pretend to be affronted. “What happened then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Then they told us <em>where</em> we were moving, and I got very quiet,” she replied. “Then I got loud again, just…” she mimed a great cheerful explosion. Maya nodded with one more grin. “Then we started to pack and… all I could tell myself was that everything would be alright, because you would be there, so I just had to make it to here.” Maya held on to her hand again, and Riley smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“What about Farkle? And Smackle?” she asked after a moment, and Riley’s smile faltered. Of course, she would have struggled almost more than anything else with her having to leave behind her friends, those who’d been there by her side in the past year while she’d had to adjust to this change. Now she had gone through one more change, and Maya knew it would be down to her and the others to help her this time.</p><p> </p><p>“I think he’s this close to trying to convince his father to move their family down here, too, but it’s more complicated now. He and Smackle have gotten closer,” she revealed with mischief in her eyes before sighing. “Leaving them was the worst,” she admitted, and Maya squeezed her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“When did you get here? Did you drive? How’s everyone? How’s the house? <em>Where’s</em> the house?” Maya asked, all the questions unfurling without pause. Riley answered them all one by one.</p><p> </p><p>“We arrived late Friday night,” she first revealed. “I wasn’t sure what to do, but I decided to wait to tell you now, to surprise you. Mom and Auggie flew in, and Dad and I drove, like you and your Mom. Well, <em>he</em> drove. It was a lot of fun actually, and I saw a lot of places you told me about. Mom and Dad are excited to be here, Auggie’s been struggling a bit. That’s why Mom took him with her, so they could start putting things around the house, get familiar and all.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya had to laugh. A few days back she could have sworn she’d seen Auggie Matthews through a shop window and she had convinced herself that she was imagining things.</p><p> </p><p>“The house is great, we’re still unpacking. Mom’s in charge. She couldn’t wait to get us out of there today so she could keep going. I’m assuming it’ll be done by the time I go back this afternoon,” she nodded. “And it’s five minutes on the bus from your house… I checked.” She stopped, looking as though she was clearing a to-do list in her head. When she nodded to herself and turned a smile toward her, Maya guessed she’d made sure she’d answered all the questions.</p><p> </p><p>“Five minutes,” Maya smiled approvingly. “So, after school I’ll have to come and see, pay my respects to my new teacher,” she smirked before standing up. Riley did the same. They would need more time to themselves than a couple of minutes stolen from a lunch break, but this was a start. All she could say for sure was that Riley was here, it was real, and all was well.</p><p> </p><p>They went back into the school, walking toward the cafeteria to rejoin the others. She wondered what Riley thought of them so far now that they were real people and not just stories that Maya told her about. But she wasn’t about to ask her about that, especially now. Until she could, she would at least be able to foresee her Texan friends and Riley getting along. That was the thing about her. One way or the other, she would be friendly.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0122"><h2>122. Her Friend in Lunch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stepping into the cafeteria, she could forget for a moment that her day was not the one she’d envisioned having anymore now that Riley stood at her side. She looked around the room, and more than her classes so far, this really felt like she was stepping back into the regular day to day. She spotted where the others had gone to sit, leading Riley to the line. She presented her to the lunch ladies, who proved just how much they managed to pick up on when they figured out the new girl was her old friend from New York. Riley walked away from this encounter, two desserts and one shocked smile richer. They went and sat in the spots kept for them, with Dylan and Lucas on either side of them. They were all packed in, seven around the table, but no one gave any complaint.</p><p> </p><p>There was a brief moment of silence at first, as they all looked around, wondering where to go from here, how to start. Maya imagined it might have been strange, knowing someone without actually knowing them, only to find yourself sitting to lunch with them.</p><p> </p><p>“So, Riley,” Zay spoke up first, and he might as well have started with ‘as your guide.’ Maya snorted to herself. “You’ve known Maya for a while,” he went on, and that was not the direction she’d expected him to go.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve known her since we were little,” Riley proudly declared, and they shared a smile at this. Before she knew it, Riley was giving them the story of how they met, with little Maya crawling through her window. The others had chuckled at this, while she remained quiet, thinking of what the moment had meant to her, beyond the adorable or funny side of it. “We’ve been best friends ever since,” Riley continued, and now Maya smiled again.</p><p> </p><p>“Always will be,” she promised her, and Riley’s own smile could have lit the school. She looked back at the group now, a bit more assertive, and Maya couldn’t have asked for more.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s told me so much about you guys already,” Riley told them. Maya appreciated that she didn’t mention how long it had taken her to do it. “I feel like I know you. Is that weird?”</p><p> </p><p>“No weirder than us knowing you,” Nadine assured her at once, and it made Maya wonder if she would ever tell Riley how she’d found her cute the moment she had first seen her picture. Every little interaction between them all seemed to bring another small memory to the surface, like she was the only one walking around with all the answers to a test. “You have a little brother, right? How old is he? I could introduce him to my little sisters.”</p><p> </p><p>Before long, not only did Auggie Matthews have a play date set with the younger Zhu girls, but Riley, like Maya the year before, had a Saturday set with all of them to take in the city. She hadn’t wandered too far from home since they’d arrived, both for unpacking reasons and for ensuring her surprise for Maya wouldn’t be ruined, so this would be perfect.</p><p> </p><p>Dylan asked if she played basketball, and Riley told them she was more of a watcher, to which Maya laid down a nomination to make her their official referee, with a promise that they would find no one worthier. Riley accepted this at once, on the promise that she could also cheer them on. The motion had passed in a landslide.</p><p> </p><p>Over the lunch period, Riley had shared conversation with almost all of them. The one exception Maya had caught on to was Lucas. She hadn’t tried to talk to him, and he hadn’t tried to talk to her, and Maya wondered why. She remembered the day she had first shown Riley a picture of him, after telling her all about him, and the reaction she’d had, which had not been so far from the one she’d had when they’d met this morning. Did she find him intimidating somehow?</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t until after they all got up that she managed to ask Riley what her silence was about. Her friend said very simply and matter-of-factly that she knew how important Lucas was to her, and she didn’t want to say anything weird to him. Maya had been amused at the thought, though she’d insisted to Riley that she had nothing to worry about.</p><p> </p><p>And then when she turned the question on to Lucas, she had found something not too different in the end. He knew that this was her best friend and – as hard as it was for him to admit it – he wanted to make a good impression on her.</p><p> </p><p>That had taken her by surprise on a whole other level, and she’d had to smile. She told him he would do great, and that she appreciated that it meant this much to him. He only tipped his head and, for a second, she almost wanted him to crack a joke, break the tension of the moment.</p><p> </p><p>This was achieved by Riley coming up to her, spilling with excitement over this Fall Festival thing she had just been told about. She led Maya along down the hall as though she knew where she was headed, though she didn’t, and Maya had to redirect her.</p><p> </p><p>“Why are you smiling?” Riley asked, and Maya blinked, telling her after a moment that she was just so happy to see her; it wasn’t a lie.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0123"><h2>123. Her Friend in Town</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lunch time was over, and as they all went on their way and took their seats in their first afternoon class, Maya started to think again about Riley’s now living here in Austin with her. It wasn’t <em>just</em> her though, and that was sort of what came to be on her mind. Her entire family had relocated here, and far be it for her to think so much of herself, but in all honesty, <em>she</em> was the reason this move had happened at all.</p><p> </p><p>It was true when she stopped and thought about it. If they had never left, her mother and her, to come and live here, then they wouldn’t have found out about some random middle school history teacher position so far away and decided to uproot everyone in order to take it, would they? That had been the whole thing, the reason that had kicked off the decision to move. Sure, it also had to do with Riley and her happiness, which was as fantastic of them as she would expect from Cory and Topanga, but it all just went back to what she’d first told herself, that they wouldn’t have had this choice to make if <em>she’d</em> still been in New York.</p><p> </p><p>The realization weighed on her more than she would have expected it to… or ever wanted it to. She had set the wheels in motion for this massive change in their lives. What if doing so kept any or all of them from just… accomplishing what they were meant to accomplish? Mr. Matthews could have been meant to be a great influence on some student who would change the world because of him, or Mrs. Matthews could have been set for the case of the century. Riley could have found her calling in life out there, and Auggie, well he was still so small, who knew what he could have found out there.</p><p> </p><p>Now they were here, and none of that was going to happen, not anymore, and they would never know, because they weren’t there. And sure, maybe this was always where they were meant to end up, and all those bits of destiny would find them here, but if she could think like that she would be a whole other person, and she just wasn’t. She was Maya Hart, and this was how a Maya Hart brain worked.</p><p> </p><p>And never mind their futures, what about their presents? What if coming here made them unhappy? She knew how long she had struggled in her missing New York, and she didn’t want that for them, even if it probably wouldn’t go the way it had gone for her. Riley’s parents, she hoped, would do fine. They were adults, it was different for them, especially as they’d been the ones to make the choice instead of having it made for them. Besides, they’d done this before, hadn’t they? They had grown up in Philadelphia, they’d told her, like Riley did, and Shawn did, sharing all those stories. And then they’d moved to New York and they’d made a life there. They would be alright.</p><p> </p><p>But then she thought of little Auggie, leaving all he’d known behind, like Maya had done, and Riley of course. Except he was so much smaller than them, and it would be a different kind of change, wouldn’t it? She didn’t want to think she could have been the cause of the little guy’s life being turned upside down.</p><p> </p><p>And Riley… her Riley… She looked to her right, looked at her sitting there and listening to their teacher – who was taking a relaxed approach to this first day back, asking about their summer – and she felt that pang in her chest. As worried as she could be for any of them to find their way here, to be happy, Riley was at the same time the one she was most concerned for and the one she felt she had the most chance with, as far as playing a direct hand in their finding happiness in Austin. Zay may have been her guide, but Maya was her best friend, and as much as she’d try and let him have this, she would want to get involved just as much if not more.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t even thinking about Mr. Matthews as their teacher here just yet. It had nearly been a year since she’d seen him in person, in or out of class. The in-class part would of course hold the most of her concerns over what would happen next. In some respects, she might say Mr. Jiménez had some similarities in how he created his learning opportunities for them, but that was about as far as the comparison went. This could be a nightmare. And yet… Part of her wanted to see the moment where he would discover the kind of student she’d become since coming here. He’d be impressed, wouldn’t he? Proud?</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, let out a breath. She had to stop thinking about all this. Riley was here, the Matthews family was here. That was a good thing, that was… just a great thing.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that she realized she’d been leaning back in her chair, with her elbow planted on Lucas’ desk. She sat forward again at once, wondering just how long she’d been sitting that way, or why it had taken him that long to say something. She’d just been lost in thought, and at one time or another she’d thought about something that had made her feel the best thing to do was to draw herself closer to him. Whatever it had been, she felt better now.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0124"><h2>124. Her Friend in Place</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The afternoon began, and where morning had been about the shock of Riley’s arrival, the second half of the day had been that shock lifted off like a fog rolling away to reveal a peaceful day underneath. They were still finding their rhythm, but it was already clear to Maya that this was going to work, all of them together. There were seven of them now and that was all.</p><p> </p><p>She could just see it in her head, like a drawing come to life out of a dream she had nurtured all along. As different as her Texas friends could appear in the beginning, over time it just wasn’t so, not anymore. Maybe it wasn’t that they’d changed, and more that she had adjusted, and they had all sort of met halfway. She looked at Riley now, with New York just bursting out of her, and she imagined that was what she’d felt like to all of them in the beginning. That wasn’t the case, not anymore, and Maya had to hope the same would happen to her. Until then Riley would probably still see them with that sort of unintended distance, separation. They were something new to her, not yet her own. But she would get her there.</p><p> </p><p>They were doing their best for the time being to keep the connection between her and their incoming history teacher a secret. It was Riley’s first day, and Maya wouldn’t have her facing a barrage of questions. The exception to that rule of course had been the rest of their group, who could hardly have been kept in the dark even if they had wanted to. They had heard before about Maya’s best friend, whose father had been their history teacher, and of all people it had been Dylan who had both recalled it and brought it up, just before the end of lunch.</p><p> </p><p>Since then, and all throughout the afternoon, the questions had started – covertly between all of them of course – about this Mr. Matthews.</p><p> </p><p>Asher had wanted to know about his assignments and his tests, how they were structured. Nadine wanted to know this as well, and what kind of material they might cover. Lucas wanted to know if they would get to do any projects the way they’d done with Mr. Jiménez, and Zay wanted to know if he gave a lot of homework. Dylan wanted to know what he was like.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had fielded these questions as much as Riley did, at times giving more direct answers than her friend did. It had been almost a year since Mr. Matthews had been her teacher, but then Cory Matthews was just not the kind of teacher that you could forget. He would stick with you, whether you liked it or not; Maya had liked it very much. She could almost have said that to his face. It did take away the stress of the unknown about this new teacher she had known she would get ever since they’d heard about Mr. Jiménez and his retirement. This wasn’t going to be unknown. This would be good old Mr. Matthews. She could more than do with that.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they reached their last class of the day, Maya was mildly concerned that they might have overhyped their new history teacher. What if he came into school and they thought he wasn’t half of what they had made him out to be? No, it would be fine, it would… right? Right?</p><p> </p><p>Maya was glad to see the end of the day arrive. Even though they’d had that moment to talk at lunch, it still felt like she’d been walking around all day, carrying an unopened present in her arms, waiting until the moment when she might finally get to tear it open and properly enjoy what was inside. They would get out of school, and it would all be good things. Maya would get to see Riley’s new house, and she would get to be reunited with Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, and with Auggie. And she would get to do something else she had imagined doing for nearly a year. She could bring Riley to see her house. They could sit in her bay window together. And that would be the start of… just everything.</p><p> </p><p>Their last class of the day felt eternal for that reason, even <em>if</em> it was art class, her favorite. She sat at her station, doing the piece their teacher assigned to them (summer, of course, the big topic in most classes as they returned from it), but as she worked, it felt less like summer and more like fall, season of change, and the biggest one of all, the return of the friend, the merger and the expansion of the great six into seven.</p><p> </p><p>It was a fortunate thing that her art teacher continually appreciated and encouraged her work, or her slight deviation might have gone misunderstood and unappreciated. Instead she explained it, and her teacher told her to continue before moving on. At this point the more she focused on her work, the faster time would move onward, taking her closer to the point where they could all get up and leave.</p><p> </p><p>When the bell finally rang, she turned to Riley, and it was clear she’d been looking forward to this, too. Though they would of course wait for the others to join them as they left school, they were the first ones up with their workspaces clean, ready to go.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0125"><h2>125. Her Friend in Group</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they walked out of school, to wait for the others, Maya took Riley’s hand and hurried her halfway down the steps, bringing her to sit by her side. She told her about how she would sit there in the morning, waiting for the others to arrive. It occurred to her now that her routine was going to have to change. Of course, she was going to have to go and get her in the morning now, no way was she going to abandon her best friend to the unknown streets of Austin. She didn’t know that she would be the first one there every morning anymore and thinking about this had made her think of something else, <em>someone</em> else, just as Riley went and said his name. Maya turned to her, and she repeated.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you and Lucas…” she asked, with a curious smile, and had they not suddenly heard Nadine calling out to them, drawing Riley’s attention away, she might have caught the wide-eyed surprise that rose on to Maya’s face as she heard the question. It had to be pulled back down as soon as possible and benched until later as she turned back to see Nadine and the boys all coming their way.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” she quickly got up to her feet, looking from Riley to the others. “So, I’m going to go with her, see her house and all that, so we’ll see each other in the morning, yeah?” she told the five of them. It was the way it had to be, she knew it, even if it might mean Riley bringing up… that… question, all over again. Maya couldn’t even begin to touch on that, and she wasn’t about to. She’d have to think of something. She had spent years distracting Riley Matthews, hadn’t she? This was nothing… nothing at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, as Riley’s gui…” Zay stepped up, only to be tugged away by both Lucas and Nadine, while Maya hooked her arm with Riley’s, letting their intrepid guide know he was off the clock. They all started off together, walking from the school until their path split, five of them one way, two of them another way.</p><p> </p><p>“See you tomorrow,” Lucas called as they split, and Maya could barely look at him as she replied, which for some reason convinced her voice it had to go louder in order to compensate. She was losing it.</p><p> </p><p>“I know where the bus stop is, Maya, you don’t have to show me,” Riley told her as they walked, a confident air fixed on her face. “I looked at maps and everything. My stop is… there,” she pointed, turning back to her. Maya didn’t even look where she pointed, only kept staring at Riley until she could figure things out for herself. Her friend hesitated before looking around again. “Oh, we’ve passed it, haven’t we?” she realized. “Why didn’t you say?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you <em>just</em> told me I didn’t have to show you, so… I didn’t,” Maya gave her a smirk, ignoring the fact that she might also have been distracted… just a bit. But they turned back and reached the stop again, moments before the bus pulled up, so the mistake was quickly forgotten. They went and sat, letting the bus carry them off to Riley’s new house.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re all really nice, Maya,” Riley commented as the bus rolled on. “Your friends…”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Our</em> friends,” Maya insisted, and Riley smiled. “They are. They got me through being new here, and they’ll do the same for you,” she went on, making her friend smile again. “I’ve been wanting all of you guys to meet for so long… The only thing that would have made this better would have been if Farkle had gotten to meet them, too,” she sighed.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, why can’t he?” Riley asked, and Maya frowned, lost. “When we call him and Smackle, just… have them all be there,” she explained. Maya blinked. She couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her to do anything like that, back before now, before Riley had moved here. Wouldn’t it have made it easier to bridge that gap…</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should,” she agreed, and Riley’s pride resumed. “So… first day, new school… impressions?” Maya asked. Riley considered this, even though the smile on her face already telegraphed the gist of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, even though it was a different building, different classes, and teachers, and classmates… except you, you know… It felt like old times… that was good, great even.”</p><p> </p><p>“My mother did promise it would be a great day. Even if she knew the reason why, I still have to say that she was right.”</p><p> </p><p>“Something <em>was</em> different though,” Riley added, and Maya paused, expecting her to bring up Lucas again for some reason. “You looked happy, being there. And I mean I know some of that was me being there… It was, right?” Maya chuckled, but she nodded. “But I never saw that back at our old school.” Maya waited, looking at her. “Do you like school now?” Riley asked, and Maya’s breath released with a laugh and a shrug.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know about ‘like,’ but… yeah.” Riley beamed, her pride surging for the third time.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait until my dad hears this.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0126"><h2>126. Her Friend in Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riley’s new home was not much bigger than her own, something she wouldn’t stop to note until the second or third time she visited it. The first time she came by it, the one true first impression she got of the house was that it already felt like it belonged to them, like if a small, lonely little Maya Hart had come by it, she would have climbed through its window, too. And then she knew what she had to do.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, we have a door,” Riley told her as they snuck around the side of the house. “And my room is on the second floor, there’s no fire escape, how are you going to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Please, you can take the girl out of New York, but… you know the rest,” she shrugged as she looked up and inspected her path. It <em>was</em> going to be tricky. “No sweat, I… What are you doing?” She turned and saw Riley struggle to pull a ladder from the shed next to the house. Maya helped her.</p><p> </p><p>“My dad put it there last night,” she shrugged. Maya smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“Did he now,” her eyebrow crooked as she leaned the ladder to the shed. Climbing this, she would land on its roof, one short and safe hop to the roof and then to the open window of what she guessed was Riley’s room. “Oh, Matthews, you’re going to regret this one later,” she muttered to herself before turning to Riley. “Shall we?” Her friend made the climb first, with Maya quick on her heel. With a few panicked squeals, Riley was through the window, and a moment later Maya passed into her room.</p><p> </p><p>“No bay window?” she noticed at once. Riley shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“We have yours now,” she reasoned, and Maya held her hand, a clear message passed: she was welcome to it anytime. Beyond the lack of a seat at the window, the room very much felt like Riley’s old room in New York had been lifted and brought here. There were some details changed of course, by the difference in surface as much as by the year they had been apart, but it didn’t change that, standing here, she felt as at home as she’d done in the old room. She smiled to Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to get to go and be in your room again?” she told her, as her friend gave her a hug in reply. “Now I need to see everything else.” Riley happily led her out into the hall and to the top of the stairs. They had passed doors Riley had quietly revealed to be those leading to her brother’s room and to her parents’ room. Maya barely took note of this. She could hear them below.</p><p> </p><p>She could hear Auggie Matthews, telling his parents about his first day at school, about his new teacher being really nice, even though he couldn’t understand her all the time when she spoke. She could hear Topanga Matthews, telling her son that it was because of her accent, and he would get used to it. Auggie went on to tell his parents about making friends with a boy in his class who was also new, only he’d moved from Canada, not New York. She could hear Cory Matthews, telling his son how Canada was their greatest ally, and she couldn’t keep standing there and not see them.</p><p> </p><p>She barrelled past Riley, landing miraculously with one smooth hop on the end before they could even realize she was there. When they saw her, they smiled at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, well, well…” she started, her introduction taken over in an instant as Auggie made a beeline for her and almost threw her to the ground as he came and hugged her. Maya joyfully held him just as tight, teetering from foot to foot as she did so. “No fair, how did you get so big?” she asked him. He shrugged, not letting go, and feeling how she had been missed by him this much made her beam.</p><p> </p><p>When Auggie had finally let her go, Maya had only a moment before she was scooped up into a new embrace, this time in Topanga’s arms. She had almost forgotten how warmly loving those hugs were, and in a moment, she remembered it all. When she’d pulled back, Topanga had found tears on her face, and in the next moment the woman who’d long been her imaginary dream mother was crying, too.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not too upset we kept this a secret from you, are you?” she asked, and Maya shook her head. “Okay, good,” Topanga nodded. Maya eventually turned to her former/future history teacher, finding a knowing smile on his face that she had also forgotten until she saw it again.</p><p> </p><p>“How about a hug while I’m not your teacher yet?”</p><p> </p><p>“Like that’s ever stopped you,” she teased, but she took the hug, gladly. She didn’t know that she’d had a day that was this emotionally charged in a long time. The hits just kept on coming, and her feet had not felt as though they touched the ground in so long. “Just so we’re clear, if I see a hat on your head, I <em>will</em> make fun of it, <em>forever</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Noted,” Mr. Matthews slowly nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell you what, why don’t you call your mom, get her over here for dinner,” Topanga offered, and Maya almost said okay until she remembered…</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go get her, actually. Riley, come with me, I can show you the house.” Riley didn’t have to be told twice. As they went, Mr. Matthews reminded them about the front door. “Sure, alright,” Maya nodded, with a tone that sounded like she was humoring him at best.</p><p> </p><p>They went and took the bus, Riley and her, and after a laughably short ride, they stepped off and walked to Maya’s house. Their arrival was given a similarly warm welcome, as Katy embraced Riley with great excitement, made all the more so when she received Topanga’s dinner invitation. She went ahead and freshened up, leaving Maya to show her house to her best friend. Much of it was done somewhat hastily; she just wanted to show Riley her room.</p><p> </p><p>As Riley had said before, seeing it on a small screen was not the same as in person, and she looked in awe as she gazed around, taking in the art on the walls, the great highlight of the space, made only second in her heart of course by…</p><p> </p><p>“Bay window. Bay window right now,” Riley declared, pulling Maya so decidedly that the blonde had to climb over her own bed in order to keep up. She would have expected this to lead to her falling on to the seat very suddenly. Instead, Riley came to a stop before carefully sitting down, inciting Maya to do the same. They sat in silence for a beat, and Riley turned to Maya with inquisitive eyes. Was the power still there?</p><p> </p><p>“The reason I didn’t just call my mom,” Maya finally spoke, moving to get something out from under her bed. “Shawn, when he was here the last time, he told me I shouldn’t give this to him to bring to you, that I should hold on to it until I could give it to you in person…” she explained. She pulled out a large, thin, wrapped item. She presented it to Riley, who gasped, taken at once with curiosity. She had it quickly unwrapped, revealing the painting underneath.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya…” Riley gasped. “This is… It’s beautiful, it’s… mine?” Maya nodded, smiling. Right there, she knew Shawn had been completely right, and she needed to see that reaction in person.</p><p> </p><p>“It is. I’ll even help you put it up.”</p><p> </p><p>They set off for the Matthews’ soon after, Maya and Riley, the painting between them, Katy following behind. They could have taken the car, but the day, the great day, was just too beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0127"><h2>127. Her Adjustment to Presence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya arrived back at the Matthews’ home, her mother and Riley at either side of her. They had not been gone more than twenty minutes, but they returned to find the rest of the family had not been sitting about in their absence. Dinner appeared to be well on its way already, though Topanga stepped away from all this to come and greet Katy Hart. Maya watched the two mothers chat rapidly in the way mothers seemed to have. Maya knew how much Riley’s mother had meant to her own over the years, and as glad as she was to have Riley back, she could tell her mother was feeling this as well in getting Topanga back.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s this?” Topanga asked, noticing the object in Riley’s hands. She presented it at once, and Maya couldn’t help but smile, seeing the amazed surprise on the woman’s face. “You made this?” she asked, and Maya nodded. “It’s wonderful work, Maya,” she declared.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to hang it in my room,” Riley jumped in. “Where are the tools?” Topanga gave her daughter’s shoulder a tap.</p><p> </p><p>“Why don’t we let Maya handle the hammer, honey?” Riley frowned; Maya chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>The painting was put aside for the time being, though it received equally high praise from Cory (“I heard you’d started painting, but I had no idea.”) and Auggie (“It’s so colorful!”). Of course, no one could rain praise on her the way her mother could, and after a while Maya had to stop her, though she did so with a blushing beam and got a kiss to the forehead in return.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t take long for Maya to start and figure out a bit of the things she’d been kept in the dark about in recent weeks. This <em>was</em> the first time her mother saw the Matthews since the day they’d driven off almost a year ago, but there had been several conversations taking place between them since <em>their</em> move had come into conversation. Her mother said she had not wanted to see them until Maya herself had the chance, that it wouldn’t have felt right otherwise. But despite that, Katy had helped by sharing her knowledge of local stores and restaurants and other things of the sort. And beforehand she had been their scout on the scene to find this very house.</p><p> </p><p>“We almost blew the surprise on Saturday,” her mother went on, and Maya knew exactly what she was referring to before she ever explained. They’d gone out to buy her school supplies, and all of a sudden she had started to push her along, down one aisle and into another, even as she complained that she still needed to grab something in that aisle. Her mother had practically body checked her to keep her from going back there, and then just as quick, she’d gone back to normal and let her carry on.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, and when I went back for that notebook, the last one was gone,” Maya gave her mother a look, which in turn provoked a look on Riley’s face she recognized immediately as ‘oops.’ “Wait a minute…” Riley said at once that she hadn’t used it yet and that she could have it, but then Maya shrugged. “No, you keep it. I want you to have it… It reminded me of you, that’s why I wanted it in the first place.” Riley thanked her with yet one more hug, and Maya took it with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“But it was a good thing I got that message from Katy and realized we were all in that store. We were almost done,” Topanga added.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t even know either,” Riley told Maya. “I would <em>not</em> have been able to stay away.” Maya figured that had gone into the reasoning for her not finding out until now either.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t get over how normal this felt, like they hadn’t all been apart for so long, and it was just any other night at Riley’s house. She couldn’t forget, <em>wouldn’t</em> forget, all those months of missing these people, but she wasn’t going to hold on to that pain either. They were here now, and although a piece of her heart remained living and going to school in New York, this great big piece had been returned to her, and she couldn’t ignore how glad she was for it.</p><p> </p><p>“Dinner won’t be ready for a while, come on,” Maya told Riley, already feeling at home in this place and running for the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait!” Riley went to grab the canvas before following her up to her room. She went looking around for a while, then moved to rest the painting on top of her dresser. “There… That’ll do for now,” she stood back to get a proper look, and Maya joined her. The painting had been waiting to reach its intended owner, it had become just something she’d done. Now she remembered doing it, remembered what it had meant, and finding it where it belonged, it had never looked anywhere as good as it did now, like it had been missing… all this, Riley’s things, Riley’s space.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s right where it belongs,” she declared, turning to Riley, who was also right where she was needed, next to her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0128"><h2>128. Her Adjustment to Location</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were two windows, side by side. It was their custom to sit there and talk, and seat or no seat, that was where they’d come to be, each of them perched on the windowsills with their feet turned to sit on the roof. Maya saw the view from here, and she imagined sunrises and sunsets, and starry nights… It reminded her of the view from her old bedroom window.</p><p> </p><p>“The view here, it’s so not like the way it was in New York,” she commented, her sigh being one of contentment. “I don’t know if I could pick one over the other.”</p><p> </p><p>“I get that,” Riley said, sounding just as happy. Maya knew there was more to it, and she could pull out those unspoken words with practiced ease. For months, Maya had wanted to share this duality she’d been experiencing, with her and with Farkle, only she didn’t think they could ever really understand. Now Riley was here, and she was getting it, and without a word she had let Maya know as much. “It’s so quiet here, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not everywhere, not like this,” Maya told her, smiling in the stillness, “But here, now… It is. I never thought I’d ever enjoy it like I do. The first morning when we were here, last year, I woke up and it felt like I was on a whole other world, and I didn’t want to say it out loud, but it was beautiful.”</p><p> </p><p>“The first morning I woke up here, I could hear my brother snoring in his room,” Riley piped in, and it made Maya laugh, full blown giggles.</p><p> </p><p>Being with her best friend again just didn’t seem to want to leave her be. She couldn’t get over it, like someone was poking her to remind her every so often, only instead of increasing frustration, it was increasing giddiness. This brand-new school year was kicking off with a blast from the past.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Riley’s tone had turned just serious enough that the giggles were made to recede. “I was scared… coming here… with you, I… It wasn’t the same, on the phone, the calls and the messages, and I was scared… it would be like that, too, when we saw each other again,” Riley admitted, and Maya could see her friend still had fear, fear that this would upset her.</p><p> </p><p>Maya wasn’t upset though; it made sense. She’d sort of been blindsided by all this that morning at school, so she hadn’t had time to ask herself any of those questions the way <em>she</em> would have done. But she had sort of thought of it since then, hadn’t she? A bit? She looked back to Riley, who still had that fear in her eyes. She reached her hand across the post between the windows, and Riley put her hand in hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you still feel that way now?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Riley slowly smiled again, and Maya gave her a nod: there you go. Riley sat up, made bolder again.</p><p> </p><p>“Things are going to be different from now on, Riley. We’re not the Maya and Riley who lived in New York their whole lives anymore. We’re not even the Maya who was in Texas and the Riley who stayed in New York anymore either. We’re brand-new people, in a brand-new year, who are going to do brand-new things together. That’s who we are, and those people, the first thing I can tell you, is they can tell each other anything, especially if it has to do with fear.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t that what the old-old us did, too?” Riley pointed out. Maya shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, but being new doesn’t mean we have to forget everything, does it? Besides, it’s those girls we were in the middle, <em>they’re</em> the problem, they forgot a <em>lot</em>. It’s not completely their fault though, I guess. That was just life doing its thing. And it got us here.” Riley was smiling, that smile she’d get, the Maya smile, that could also double down into a mischief smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Can the new people have a weird accent?” she offered, and Maya gave her a look. “Howdy, Maya Hart, what a fine afternoon it is!” Riley went on, adopting an accent that was so shaky in its attempt to come off Texan but was also filled with so much enthusiasm that she was made to fall back into giggles one moment before she had to go and play the game, too, though her accent, from a year’s exposure, stood head and shoulders above Riley’s attempt.</p><p> </p><p>“As I live and breathe, Riley Matthews,” she tipped her head, while Riley looked delighted and insisted that she keep on going. “You know not everyone talks like that though,” she continued with the accent. “None of the guys or Nadine do, not even Lucas, and he <em>looks</em> like he should… What?” she paused, seeing the way Riley had looked at her when she’d brought up Lucas’ name.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nothing,” Riley insisted, though her face said it wasn’t. Maya pressed, for better or for worse. “You never answered my question earlier, back at school. Everyone just showed up, and then we left…”</p><p> </p><p>“Kind of slipped away, yeah,” Maya quietly agreed, though her head stayed down in hopes of not telegraphing how she didn’t want to get into it. Her success was too grand.</p><p> </p><p>“So… what are you guys?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0129"><h2>129. Her Adjustment to Questions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>What are you guys?</em> Why was that complicated for her to answer? Lucas was her friend, he was… her best friend, here in Austin… Now with Riley here, that made Lucas her best friend who was <em>from</em> Austin, she guessed. That was all he was, right? She was worrying that Riley would feel awkward about her saying anyone else but her could fit the category of best friend, and <em>that</em> was why this was complicated. Except… no… No, Riley knew about this already, she had for weeks, and Maya knew with certainty that she understood this.</p><p> </p><p>What are you guys?</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t take much for her to know exactly what box Riley was inquiring about within those options, the one that would entail that Maya and Lucas were… well, together… or not. That was more than a box; that was a crate, a shipping container, or maybe a warehouse. Because how could she even think that they… that he… and her…</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was her friend, her best friend from Austin. To suggest there was or could be more to it just made no sense to her… right? Riley barely knew the guy, and this was the assumption she was making? Okay, she hadn’t actually made any claims that specifically said that she believed it, but… What would it mean then otherwise? If she wasn’t asking because she thought that they were but because she wanted to make sure they weren’t…</p><p> </p><p>One way or the other, it would all boil down to the fact that, in Riley’s mind, there was cause to assume that there was something going on between her and Lucas, and now here she was all over again. It felt like she was standing at an intersection, cars whizzing by so relentlessly fast, which was a problem because not only did she have to cross to the other side, but she also had to notice the cars; there would be a test after. All the information was here, all around her, but it was so much chaos, so she couldn’t make heads or tails about it. This felt a lot like that now, like she could hear everything, people around her, but it was going too fast for her to even try and cut in, to process any amount of it.</p><p> </p><p>Had she given Riley any reason to assume as much, or… had <em>he</em>? No, that couldn’t be right, she’d only met him today, only a few hours before she’d first put this question to Maya. And in that time, in those hours, all she’d actually managed to do was be in class with them, and at lunch… That was all the exposure she had to Lucas Friar, whereas she’d heard Maya talk about him for weeks and months in their calls. And somehow in all this time, this was the conclusion she’d reached?</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you ask?” Maya asked, with a dismissive sort of shrug that could just as easily have been nervous laughter.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya,” Riley <em>did</em> laugh, though hers was not nervous so much as it seemed to say ‘come on.’ “The way you talked about him, I just have to ask, you know? In case…”</p><p> </p><p>Riley paused there, and Maya closed her eyes. Oh… So that was what it was then… Clearing the air, checking for lines drawn, to cross or not to cross, in the event that she might find something worth approaching – or someone. Riley would not cross a line, if it existed. She wanted Maya to tell her if there was a line or not.</p><p> </p><p>The cars were still speeding by in her head, and they were speeding up, if that was possible. She knew they weren’t real, but she still felt dizzy enough that she turned her legs back through the window and into Riley’s room. Why? Why was it so hard to answer her? To just tell her that Lucas was her friend, her best friend from Austin, just as she’d told Riley already, simple as that. Say it. Say it. Say…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, want to see <em>my</em> room?” Auggie Matthews appeared at the door to his sister’s room, and Maya didn’t know when she might have been happier to see that kid. She hopped off the windowsill and went and offered her hand to be pulled away across the hall.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait for me!” she heard Riley call out, scrambling to follow the two of them, arriving behind them a moment after Maya and Auggie had stepped into the boy’s room. By the looks of it, the theme had been ‘we are moving to Texas, so I’m a cowboy now.’</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, Auggie,” Maya told him. “This is great. You like it?” He nodded with genuine interest. “If you want, I could paint something on your walls,” she offered, not thinking so much about whether or not his parents would approve. The nod <em>he</em> gave her made it clear that he would not be a happy camper if he were told no later on.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you paint something on mine, too?” Riley asked. Maya gave her the affirmative, though she also hoped deep down that The Question would not come and be asked again. If it did, she just did not see herself getting any closer to knowing how she would ever answer it. She was already afraid that, asked or not, it would continue to wheel through her mind, most of all when she’d be faced with Lucas again.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0130"><h2>130. Her Adjustment to Dynamics</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d spent nearly ten minutes in Auggie’s room, ending on a promise that Maya would show him a real cowboy one day, before returning to Riley’s room where they plopped down on the bed, legs dangling over the edge, rather than going back to the windows. They stared up at the ceiling for a while, taking this moment to enjoy something simple that had been given back to them. That was how Maya saw it at least, and she trusted that it would be the same for Riley as well, as she turned her head to look at her, finding her smiling with that contentment.</p><p> </p><p>How was it that she’d had her back for so little time? Hadn’t it always been like this? Riley and her and the world.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t the same though, was it? It wasn’t going to be. They weren’t in New York anymore. It wasn’t them and Farkle anymore, it was the two of them and then these five great people she’d shaped her new life around for the past year. Today had been one thing, with the new year, and Riley’s arrival. But sooner or later they’d have to find what their new rhythm was going to be.</p><p> </p><p>What if they didn’t get along with her? It was ridiculous, she realized. Riley Matthews was the best person she knew and liking her just sort of happened. She came into your life and you never wanted to let her out again, not if you knew what was good for you and you weren’t a jerk…</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll tell me if anything’s wrong, yeah?” Maya asked her friend, who looked at her, smiling but puzzled. “If you have trouble… adjusting, or…”</p><p> </p><p>“Why would I need to adjust? You’re going to be there, I’m good,” she shrugged. Maya frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“Riley, the optimism thing’s still cute, but I’m serious.”</p><p> </p><p>“So am I. I’ve been here for days, I’m okay. I miss New York, and Farkle, and Smackle, and maybe I’ll be sadder later, but… I’m really okay. You had it hard, coming here on your own, I know, and that makes you scared that I’ll go through that, too, but… I don’t have to, because of you.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked at Riley, considering this. She guessed she was right. She’d spent so long being worried for her, looking out for her over the years, and now here she stood, on the other side of the most violent storm she’d had to cross, thinking of her being caught up in it, too, just a tiny thing with no chance to survive. And here <em>she</em> was, promising a smooth sail.</p><p> </p><p>“And if that changes?” Maya asked her, holding on to her fears so long as she chose to. Riley smiled, clasping her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m close enough to come running, the second it does.” Maya nodded, smiled back. She believed her, had to.</p><p> </p><p>Now she thought about what it would be like, having her there. Seven instead of six. Three girls now, to those four boys. Suddenly the split wasn’t so off anymore, not that it had ever really made much a difference where she or Nadine were concerned, but still there were those times when it did. And Nadine had been so thrilled to have one other female friend, now she had two… It was going to become something new, no other way around it, was there? And what would happen with this plan to try out for the basketball team? Only hours ago, they had been seeing a near future where their whole group would be part of either the girls’ or boys’ team.</p><p> </p><p>Now with Riley… She didn’t want her to feel she had to try out if it wasn’t what she really wanted. Besides, cheerleading had always been what she was after. She’d seen the cheerleaders here, and she’d seen Riley’s attempts in New York. Unless she had miraculously become a super cheerleader in the past year… there was just no way. She couldn’t let her just fall on her face, could she?</p><p> </p><p>And then the guys, well… that was sort of easy, if she actually stopped and gave it an honest thought. Dylan would be just as energetic as she was, and they would have no worries around each other. Asher would be sort of casual about it, same as he ever was. And then he would find out how many A’s she’d been getting back in New York and he would get intrigued by that. Zay, well… he was her guide, and he would not let her – Maya – forget it. Really, he was going to like having her around, just as he’d already shown that he did. And Lucas… Lucas… There was that twitch again, thinking of The Question. She pushed it aside. Lucas would welcome her without a doubt, and being his old Huckleberry self, he would make her feel as welcome as she was, which was absolutely and completely.</p><p> </p><p>They were going to be alright, all of them, and Riley, too. She just needed to remind herself of that, and to not let herself doubt it. How easy it was, to let the concerns claw at her. Once upon a time, she hadn’t felt them so close, and now, even as she’d settled into this new life, it seemed she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t the same girl who’d left New York. And Riley, at her side, she wasn’t the same either and she would have to be rediscovered. And Maya was ready for it.</p><p> </p><p>“What should we do until dinner’s ready?” Riley asked. Maya thought about it, and she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Keeping a promise. Get up.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0131"><h2>131. Her Adjustment to Distance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>No matter how many times they’d done this over the last year, the thing that never changed was that when either of their faces would pop up on the screen, it would give her a jolt. And even now, with Riley’s shoulder stuck to her own, when she saw his face appear, she was overjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>“Farkle!” Maya called out, just as Riley did. The boy they saw there on the other side looked as happy to see them as he looked just… sad. He tried not to let it show, but of course she saw it, of course she did. They were there, but they weren’t <em>there</em>, <em>with</em> him.</p><p> </p><p>“I missed you today,” Riley told him. “We both did, especially in science class. We thought about you,” she declared, and Maya nodded to confirm. Once upon a time she had shown herself annoyed by him, but underneath that, and for the years since she’d known him, he had been her friend, one of her best. Even now, it was all still there, and it would stay there.</p><p> </p><p>“Science class,” he smiled and nodded. He was so much more quiet right now, not bursting with energy as he so often was. She knew he wasn’t always like that, and that right now of all times it was more than normal, but still… what she wouldn’t have given to see him go full Farkle right now. “We had ours today, too, or… I did.” There was that quiet again.</p><p> </p><p>“You can still decide to transfer, can’t you?” Riley leaned closer to the screen, and Maya knew this was a conversation the two of them must have had before, though she was hearing this for the first time. Now Farkle was looking at her, and he had to see she wanted to know what this was about.</p><p> </p><p>“Einstein Academy,” he told her. “Smackle’s there. With you two gone now, our school just feels… wrong. Even Mr. Matthews is gone.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you should go there,” Maya told him with a smile. “I want you to be happy, Farkle.” Riley gave a nod that said, ‘me too.’ He didn’t look convinced. “Wouldn’t you be?”</p><p> </p><p>“But if I go, then none of us are going to be left at our school,” he told them. Maya looked to Riley, knowing right about now she’d be feeling that same sort of helplessness she’d felt all through this year, being away from both of them.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going to leave at the end of the year anyway,” Maya pointed out. “Might as well go where you have someone there who’ll make you be the guy we both know, and miss, and care for. You have my blessing, and you have <em>hers</em>,” she added without looking at Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, do it,” Riley chimed in a half second later.</p><p> </p><p>“You heard her. Don’t put it off, okay? Don’t make me make her dad call your dad. No, actually, I’ll make her <em>mom</em> call your dad, I hear he had a bit of a thing for her, didn’t he?” she smirked, breaking into giggles at how the two of them responded to this suggestion, which was capped with Riley’s urgent plea for Farkle to ‘do it!’</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to him, I will,” he conceded, and to Maya’s delight, she saw the slightest rise of a smile in him, as though the knowledge of his impending transfer had come as a relief. “How was it when you saw each other?” he asked. “Did you yell? Did you cry?” There he was, there was her Farkle.</p><p> </p><p>“There… may have been tears,” Maya tried to play it cool, which worked for about as long as she would have expected it to, with Riley next to her. She almost expected her to start crying <em>now</em>, just recalling it.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the school? What’s it like?” he turned to Riley like they were a pair of fans, and one of them had gotten to step on the stage of their favorite show; they’d been talking about this, too. Maya had known they would develop something, just the two of them, in her absence, but seeing it in action <em>was</em> sort of strange.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nice,” Riley nodded confidently. Maya had a feeling their Texas school would need to work a little harder to earn its place in Riley’s heart over the one occupied by their old middle school. “There’s the fall festival coming up, I saw the decorations all over the place. And there’s steps out front, like Maya said, how she’ll sit there…”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a school, it’s no big deal,” Maya cut in, starting to feel just a bit awkward. “So, what now?” she asked them. “What do we do about our calls? We need a new schedule, we need to have more of them all of us together, Smackle, too. Which reminds me, Lucas mentioned how he’d like to be there once, get to meet you guys, maybe the whole group here, too,” she revealed.</p><p> </p><p>“That’d be great,” Riley declared, and Farkle seemed as game for it as she was. A moment later, Riley’s mother called to her, and she went running off, leaving Maya alone with the screen, Farkle on the other side. She looked at him, smiling again now, but still she couldn’t forget about the messages they had exchanged throughout the day, the concern she’d felt for him. She knew what was behind it now, for the most part, but she still had to ask, to know that he was alright, while it was just the two of them.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0132"><h2>132. Her Adjustment to Caring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a beat, as she stared back at Farkle’s face, knowing they were on their own, where she almost brought up her… situation, with Lucas and The Question. Farkle Minkus, for all his spastic energy, was someone who she might have been able to draw some answers from. But it was about as simple as rushing into oncoming traffic when she was perfectly safe on the curb. She blinked, and it passed.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s Smackle?” she asked him, and maybe for her own questioning, she spared him similar inquiries, at least in any direct manner.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s good,” he answered immediately, and here Maya was pleased to see the way he just brightened instantly at the mention of her name, and she couldn’t say whether he didn’t notice it, or didn’t mind to show. “She’s the same, I guess, just… Smackle.”</p><p> </p><p>Near as she could tell, this would make her the same girl she had spoken to a handful of times or two. Direct, to the point, so awkward, and with a dash or five of surprise strange… And when she was with Farkle, it all came together in an oddly perfect way. Maya could see something grow between them, a friendship if nothing else. Already in her being gone, she’d been glad that he should have that, but now that Riley was gone, too, ‘glad’ didn’t even begin to cover it. She might have hugged the girl if she was more of a hugger – as Riley had told her she wasn’t – and if she wasn’t miles and miles away.</p><p> </p><p>“And how’s it been, since Riley left New York?” She’d meant as far as Smackle and him, but she knew quickly that he had taken it on a much more personal level.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve almost gone to the window about five times,” he confessed, “Then I remembered it was someone else’s house now and I stopped.” That was what he said, but his face suggested there might have been at least one time when he had gotten as far as the window, and as amused as she thought she would have been to hear how that panned out, she never asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s weird to think of other people being in there now,” she admitted instead. “Other people sitting where we sat…” She’d never felt that way about her own old apartment, not really, but somehow, Riley’s place not being that anymore felt wrong, even as she sat in her new home. Farkle nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I think about it, too.” They were quiet for a moment. “I am going to do it, you know? Einstein Academy. The more I think about being at our old school on my own, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s <em>our</em> school, not just mine on my own,” he told her, and she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“You just go show those brainiacs who’s boss.” That made him happy, and <em>that</em> made <em>her</em> happy in return. “I just realized you’ll have to wear that uniform now,” she chuckled as he nodded. “Please send pictures?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do I have to?” he cringed, and she nodded firmly. “Fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll look adorable,” she promised, raising something of a blush on him. “I needed to see that smile. You had me really worried this morning,” she told him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he bowed his head. “I didn’t mean to. Ever since Riley took off, I wanted to talk, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to ruin the surprise. The closer we got to today, the harder it got, and with school starting, I guess I couldn’t hide how I felt.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t have to, especially now,” Maya told him. She looked back, even though Riley didn’t have a covert bone in her body, but she hadn’t returned yet. “You can tell me anything,” she told him.</p><p> </p><p>“Everyone’s leaving… Everyone’s left…” he told her, and she could feel it, looking at him. Riley had him in New York, and she had her now in Austin, but Farkle… It was like her, only in reverse. She’d been removed from her world… and he’d had his world removed from him. His school was still his but didn’t feel like it anymore, his hangouts, any of it… He hadn’t moved, but he might as well have; he had to start over. She’d had her mother… He had his parents, but mostly he had Isadora Smackle.</p><p> </p><p>“Your dad has money, can’t you guys just come here, too?” she only half-joked, “Everyone else is doing it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind. But we can’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she sighed. “You’re going to be okay, Farkle,” she told him, in all honesty. “It’s going to be hard for a while, but not forever. Genius like you, you’ll make it through. And me and Riley, we’re always a call or a message away.” He nodded. “I have to go. Dinner will be ready soon.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks for calling, Maya,” he told her, and she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Anytime,” she replied, and she meant it. Day or night, she didn’t care about time differences, or school… Farkle could count on his friends, near or far.</p><p> </p><p>“Do me a favor? Mr. Matthews is going to be your teacher now. If he tells you about Belgium 1831, you conference me in, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0133"><h2>133. Her Adjustment to Tradition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As predicted, almost as soon as the call had been ended, Riley had come to get her for dinner. She was sad that she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Farkle, though Maya assured her she could just as easily write to him later, and he would enjoy that. It made her smile again.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” Maya threw her arm around her shoulders. “Family dinner,” she declared, and they were off.</p><p> </p><p>Coming down the stairs, they found the table set and dishes ready and waiting for them. Auggie was at his seat, looking like all he needed was the go ahead and he would be digging into his plate. Mr. Matthews was also in his place… and his expression was not unlike that of his son. Maya could see her mother and Riley’s standing in the kitchen still, talking, and she wondered what they were talking about, especially as she saw the way they smiled, laughed around… She could almost guess it, but she wouldn’t take a chance.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re here,” Riley announced, as the two of them sat side by side at the table, soon joined by their mothers after they parted – Maya noted – with a nod that seemed to say ‘we’ll talk about it more later.’ It was going to drive her insane.</p><p> </p><p>“What were you guys talking about?” she asked, looking from one to the other as they shared a look. It was impossible not to see some kind of conclusion there. She wasn’t far off.</p><p> </p><p>“I was just telling Katy how we have a few things that were left behind, back in New York, and Shawn has promised to get them out to us the next time he finds himself passing through Austin by chance… again,” Topanga revealed, sending a wave of varied reactions around the table. Mr. Matthews, at the mention of his best friend, looked like an eager puppy waiting for his master to return.</p><p> </p><p>Riley looked just as interested, but then again Maya had told her all about those past visits, and how they’d been keeping in touch. But, of course, Riley knew more than she let on, always. Maya had long pieced together the involvement of Riley – and her December Magic – in getting him on her doorstep that first time, and every development shared felt like this was all exactly working according to <em>her</em> plans. When Maya had told Riley about his budding connection to her mother, she had looked like she wanted to jump for joy. Maya now half suspected these things left in New York were her doing, for the sole purpose of getting Shawn Hunter to make another trip down to Austin, the third in under a year.</p><p> </p><p>Not that Maya would complain in any way. Hearing that he would return was actually filling her with this feeling she only ever got when he came around. They still talked and wrote. Once in a while, she would receive a package, seeing the handwriting on top and knowing it was from him. Sometimes her mother would receive one, too… They weren’t so secretive about their calls anymore, which was good. And as hard as it had been for her to get to this point, she hardly felt any fear at all anymore. She knew, or… maybe she hoped… fiercely so… that something would work itself out for the two of them, her mother and Shawn… and the three of them, too.</p><p> </p><p>“When?” she asked Topanga.</p><p> </p><p>“It might be a little while,” her mother replied. “But sometime before Christmas,” she added, making her think Shawn had already told her about this. So, what had she and Riley’s mother been talking about?</p><p> </p><p>“So how was your first day at school?” Mr. Matthews asked both Riley and Maya. They’d already broached the subject, but he wanted details now.</p><p> </p><p>“It was great,” Riley told him. “You should have seen the look on her face,” she went on, tipping her head to Maya before reproducing the look, just a bit exaggerated, though Maya still pointed to her face as though to say ‘there it is, that’s the one.’ “The teachers are nice, the school’s pretty, and they got me a guide, and he’s one of Maya’s friends. I met all of them today.”</p><p> </p><p>“Your friends, too,” Maya assured her with a smile, and Riley nodded. “Zay’s her guide,” she told her mother, who smirked in recognition. “Now you have six friends there to look out for you,” Maya told Riley. “But I still do that the best, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Always,” Riley agreed as they all started to eat. Her parents wanted to know about these friends of hers. She had sort of mentioned them once or twice in passing before, the times they’d talked. So, Maya told them the story of <em>her</em> first day here in school, meeting Lucas, and Zay, and being introduced to Asher, and Dylan, and Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>She gave them all glowing reviews – as well they merited them – in great part in the hopes to paint them as favorably as possible if she ever intended to get them through the door here. She couldn’t see there being any issues, but they couldn’t know how Riley’s parents would react the day four – she would never say this to their faces – cute looking guys showed up on their doorstep to visit their daughter.</p><p> </p><p>“And Nadine thought maybe Auggie could get along with her little sisters,” she thought to add, redirecting the subject in the process. The boy looked up at this.</p><p> </p><p>“That sounds great,” Topanga told her with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t going to mention the Denver incident, or the ensuing run. She hadn’t even told Riley about it, not entirely. Once they all got to know them, maybe, but for now she was afraid it might paint them in the wrong light, and she didn’t want that.</p><p> </p><p>“So, first day of school tomorrow,” Maya turned to Mr. Matthews. “Are you excited? Did you pick out your clothes? Pack a lunch?” she smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he scoffed, then turning to Topanga with a silent question, he received a nod – and a sigh of exasperation. Maya and Riley had a laugh at this. The truth was she was halfway excited for it. There was the other half, who dreaded the potential chaos of it all, but it was mostly ignored.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait,” she told him, and her honest smile was met in kind. “Do teachers get guides, too? I could be your guide, I’m really good, I promise you won’t get lost or locked in a broom closet,” she told him. He gave her a look. “Hey, it’s been a year, I need to make up for lost time,” she shrugged, before taking a bite and chewing innocently.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I would be happy to have you as my guide, Maya. And I can’t wait to see the Maya Hart I’ve been hearing about from my new colleagues in my class,” he told her, and she couldn’t help but smile.</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll be there,” she told him. “After she comes and picks Riley up to take her to school.”</p><p> </p><p>The dinner carried on in much this same spirit. It felt like any old dinner between them, but it also felt different, new and improved. She liked it. She looked forward to many more nights like this, here or back at her house.</p><p> </p><p>By dessert, she had revealed her plan to try out for the girls’ basketball team. This was met with great enthusiasm, and she could already picture them in the stands, if she made the team. With maybe some relief, Riley had said that she wasn’t planning to do the same. She would gladly cheer them on by the sidelines, she promised, and Maya didn’t bring up whether this meant she intended to try out for cheerleading. She left it alone.</p><p> </p><p>Maya and her mother said goodnight to the Matthews family when all was said and done, starting back on foot to their own little house, the first day ended, the second just around the corner.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0134"><h2>134. Their Class With Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas knew she would arrive later than usual, since she was going to collect Riley from home first to get her to school. He got ready as usual himself, and he came to meet Zay on the way in. He was still taking issue with how his position as the new girl’s guide had once again been hijacked by someone else. Sure, he understood why in this case, just as he understood the year before, but as he put it, how was he going to prove himself worthy of this honor if he couldn’t actually do anything about it? Lucas insisted that just because Maya was getting Riley to school, it didn’t mean he wasn’t the latter’s guide anymore. Maya was just doing her bit for her best friend, which was more than fair. They both knew, maybe more than the rest of their group, just how much Maya had missed her.</p><p> </p><p>When they arrived in front of school, Nadine, Asher and Dylan were already there. Zay went and sat at Nadine’s side. The two of them had dated long enough now that it wasn’t so new to the rest of the group anymore, though it did still feel just a bit startling at times to see them holding hands, or leaning to one another… The kissing was at least something even they didn’t feel too at ease doing in front of them, so that was… well that was that. Lucas looked at them now, Nadine holding on to Zay’s arm, her chin on his shoulder, the two of them so plainly happy, and he was glad for them… and maybe just a little envious?</p><p> </p><p>“There they are,” he heard Dylan say, and he turned to see Maya and Riley coming up from their bus stop and toward the school.</p><p> </p><p>It was good to see them like this. How long had he seen how much it tore Maya up to be away from her best friend? And now to have this happen, her friend moving here, too… They couldn’t have asked for anything better. He had only known Riley for a day now, but he could see why she would be someone to be missed. It wouldn’t have seemed evident on paper that these two girls should be best friends like this. But then you saw them together and it was like… well of course they are, what else could they be?</p><p> </p><p>“Morning!” Riley greeted them all with a grin as the two of them came up the steps. They all said hello, her smile something infectious. Lucas turned to Maya, to say hello as well.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” she tipped her head to him, and immediately he felt just a bit of confusion. She didn’t sound upset at all, not even a little, but at the same time there was something different in her tone, almost distant, or… he didn’t know, distracted maybe?</p><p> </p><p>“Do you need any guidance this morning?” Zay inquired, and Riley turned to Maya, who signalled back to Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“You can show me where history class is?” Riley turned back to him, “Wouldn’t want to get called out by my dad on his first day.”</p><p> </p><p>“Consider it done,” he replied, his chest puffing out, prompting a snort from Nadine at his side. He turned to her.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll do great,” she nodded, tapping his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>As all this talk was happening, Lucas had still been thinking about the look on Maya’s face. He’d stolen a few more glances in this time, and it was still there. More than that, it almost looked to him like she was trying not to meet his gaze. Was he reading too much into this? He had to be. There was literally no explanation for it that he could be aware of.</p><p> </p><p>The girls sat with the rest of them, on the step below Zay and Nadine. Talk turned before long to plans for all of them to hang out over the weekend, to take Riley around the city, like they’d done with Maya. There were also plans coming together for another sleepover in the near future, all seven of them now, as before, at Maya’s house. All of them were more than anxious to start folding Riley into their habits as a group. That afternoon, they had an appointment with the hoop in the Orlandos’ yard, and movie night was back on the table, too.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was ready and willing for all this. Still, again, he couldn’t let go of what he was noticing in the blonde sat below. He wanted to ask what it was about, but he felt he shouldn’t. In the year they had known each other, they had gotten to this place where they could read each other well enough, at least he thought they did, and in all the times she had confided in him, he’d come to understand one thing that kept him from inquiring here. Rule number one: If she didn’t volunteer the information in public, ask privately. If there was something on her mind, he could ask later… or she might just come to him later herself.</p><p> </p><p>It was time to head inside. The seven of them stood, moving up the steps toward the school. Zay immediately asked Riley if she needed him to get her anywhere. Riley reminded him she knew where her locker was, giving him a grateful smile nonetheless and reminding him he would be taking her to history class, even if they’d all be headed in that direction, as Maya added. Dylan offered to close his eyes so he could be guided, too, though Asher shut this down at once; the last thing he needed was to bump into or trip over something and get another scar.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0135"><h2>135. Their Class With a Father</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They reached history class, Zay ahead of them, followed by Riley, followed by the rest of them who pretended as though they didn’t know where they were headed but lightly acted like tourists on a museum tour. Nadine had gone so far as to take out her phone, snapping shots of this locker or that teacher. Maya, right at her side, was taking the slow observant stroll of an art enthusiast. It was as good a distraction as any.</p><p> </p><p>This morning, she’d been anticipating this first class with Mr. Matthews. She had gone to get Riley at home, climbing her ladder, skipping on to the roof and through the window to plop down at her startled friend’s side. Riley had gotten ready, had breakfast, and then they were off, promising Mr. Matthews they’d be there on time. He had looked as nervously anxious as they would have expected him to be.</p><p> </p><p>But then they’d reached school, discovering they were the last ones to arrive, and… she’d seen Lucas there… and her brain had given a lurch.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been so sure she’d put that whole question behind her, even though the afternoon before she had more or less predicted this exact event, that she would see him and become uselessly confused. And the worst part was she couldn’t exactly go to him with this, could she? That would be opening up one messy can of worms.</p><p> </p><p>No, this would pass, it would, and hopefully he would not notice, or he would forget… She had to tell herself that, even if she knew he wouldn’t be his good Huckleberry self if he did either of those things. Of course, he’d noticed already. Of course, he wouldn’t just forget. She would just have to find another way out of this mess she’d been pulled into because of four innocent words out of her best friend.</p><p> </p><p>They assumed the same seating arrangement they’d taken in their classes the day before, but even as they stepped into the room, they could feel curious eyes on them from the others in the room already. The reason became clear when they saw “Mr. Matthews” was written on the chalkboard. Even if she and Riley had been strangers, she would have been able to put two and two together of a new student and new teacher both called Matthews coming along at the same time not being a coincidence.</p><p> </p><p>“Guess the secret’s out,” Riley commented. Maya looked around the room again, protective instincts kicking in at once. If anyone was going to say anything, they had best be ready to deal with her. What came out was for the most part curiosity of the same kind that their own group had had when they had learned their new history teacher was Riley’s father. That had been the first question here, too, for confirmation’s sake.</p><p> </p><p>“Is he nice?” one asked. Riley said he was really nice, which Maya confirmed so they wouldn’t assume parental bias.</p><p> </p><p>“Does he give a lot of homework?” another wanted to know. None more than usual, entirely reasonable.</p><p> </p><p>“What about tests?” asked a third. Perfectly fine if you pay attention and you study.</p><p> </p><p>“Does he go easier on you because he’s your dad?” asked the first again. Maya looked at Riley, who looked back at her. They probably shouldn’t mention the hugging, yeah?</p><p> </p><p>“In class, he’s my teacher, not my father,” Riley explained.</p><p> </p><p>“And that’ll be all the questions Ms. Matthews will take today, for further information, contact her publicist… me,” Maya declared before pulling Riley to take her seat.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re her publicist now?” She turned around at Lucas’ question, on pure reflex, and the answer was the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Since forever, I mean look at her. Too bad, I’m fresh out of business cards.” He smiled, and all at once her thoughts seized up again. She willed a smile in return before turning to look at Riley again. “You okay?” she asked, blinking to herself at the same time. Riley nodded. “Good.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s funny. I might need to get myself one of those. Are you taking on any new clients?” Lucas again. She turned back to him slowly. There it was, that look in his eyes, the one that asked if she was alright. Why did he have to be so attentive like that? Because he was Lucas, of course he would… “What are your fees?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I’m very reasonable on that,” she told him, her tone as unmatched as his. Their words were saying one thing, their voices another. There was the banter of a fake client for a fake publicist, there was a concerned friend being reassured by another. “Step into my office later, we can discuss numbers.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds good,” he gave her a nod.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting forward but leaning back again, Maya took in a breath and let it out again. This didn’t have to be complicated, did it? No, she was alright, they both were. She’d just say she hadn’t slept well, something like that. It would give her plenty of time to get her mind back on track, and she <em>would</em> do so. In the meantime, she had a new/old teacher to look forward to, any minute now. The questions had been silenced. Now everybody just waited to see who or what would come through that door. If they still doubted the family connection, they would only need to get a look at him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0136"><h2>136. Their Class With a New Teacher</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of all the potential nightmare introductions they could have had from what he’d been told about their new teacher’s enthusiasm, Lucas had to say it all ended up being as straight forward as could be, but then maybe the man had figured he needed to play ball, for the sake of his daughter, who was still new at this school.</p><p> </p><p>But the man who came through the door did look as nice as he had been introduced to them through Maya and Riley’s information. Lucas’ first direct impression of him was that he would not be the kind of teacher who phoned it in or treated them like they were in the wrong on principle. He looked like someone who loved his job and would want to share that passion with them. Lucas could get behind that.</p><p> </p><p>So, the new teacher introduced himself as Cory Matthews, their new history teacher, originally from Philadelphia, but having lived in New York for many years, until he moved to Austin very recently. Unaware that this information had previously been established, he told them how he was also Riley’s (very proud) father, and that he had previously been her teacher, as well as Maya’s.</p><p> </p><p>“The stories I could tell you about those two,” he laughed, only a moment before, Lucas had to guess, he got a look from Maya that told him better. “But that’s not the history you’re here to learn about,” he clapped his hands together, clearing his throat. “Why don’t we go around real quick, so I can get to know all of you. Tell me your name and one thing about what you did this summer,” he turned to the first student of the row on the other side of the room.</p><p> </p><p>As the turns were taken, one by one, Lucas watched this new teacher of theirs, sitting on the edge of his desk, listening attentively to each of the accounts he received, asking further questions in consequence with each one of them. The class followed along with this with interest. Lucas had to guess this exercise was as much for his benefit as it was for his daughter’s, who would be learning plenty about the rest of her new classmates. And none would be the wiser for it.</p><p> </p><p>At the third seat on the third row from the window, Dylan had his turn. He said his name and told the class how his brother had moved to Florida over the summer, of all places, to Orlando. Mr. Matthews asked if that had anything to do with it, but Dylan explained that it was actually because of college. Next summer, he and his family would go on a trip there to see him and have a vacation.</p><p> </p><p>Then at the top of the second row from the window, the new teacher was introduced to Zay, his daughter’s school-appointed guide – his words. Over the summer, he had celebrated the holidays at his aunt’s home, along with his friends, for the annual family party. Mr. Matthews asked how it was and, stealing a look to Nadine, he declared it their best one yet.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr. Matthews,” Riley nodded, behind Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“Miss Matthews,” he did the same. And that was that.</p><p> </p><p>Asher was next, and he told the teacher how over the summer he had worked at his uncle’s diner, and that he had decided then and there he wanted to be a chef when he grew up. It had been something of a sore subject at home, as his parents claimed they saw so much more for his future. Mr. Matthews told him that if that was what he wanted, and kept wanting, then he had to keep at it.</p><p> </p><p>At the top of the last row, Nadine introduced herself. And the big news she had to share along with the class, her friends included, was that her parents were expecting a new baby, due somewhere around February. This was met with excitement in the cluster of their group. Mr. Matthews congratulated her, too, and asked if she had any preferences on her new sibling. Nadine declared that she would like a brother, though at the same time, all girls was good, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Matthews,” Maya nodded in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>“Hart,” their teacher was not deterred. “Your summer?”</p><p> </p><p>“Hotter than most,” she declared. “But pretty good, all around,” she added, looking at her friends, him included. “Had hopes to go to New York, which didn’t happen, but would you look at that, New York came to me. Before that, I had a nice visit from a certain… Hunter,” she gave him a nod. “And a great party, with some strategic music,” she looked to the lovebirds in front of her, who smiled back at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas Friar,” he introduced himself now that his turn had come. “Summer was… It was great, actually. For a minute there, I was… concerned that it wouldn’t be,” he said, and Maya turned to look at him. “But then it turned out to be the best in a long time.” She casually turned back to look forward, and now he didn’t know what else to say. “That’s it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Mr. Friar,” Mr. Matthews said before moving on to the next student. In the meantime, Lucas kept on looking at the back of Maya’s head. It seemed most of the time when he needed to talk to her, they were both stuck in class and he couldn’t do anything without getting one or both of them in trouble.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0137"><h2>137. Their Class With Then & Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well this was it, wasn’t it? Just like that, old life, new life, stuck together like two colors of paint mixed together to make some color they hadn’t bottled before. And now she had to give it a name.</p><p> </p><p>She was sure she hadn’t thought of or listened to much of anything since Mr. Matthews had finished his circuit of the class. Mr. Matthews, her former teacher, but before all that her best friend’s father, someone she’d known since she was little. Mr. Matthews, talking to Dylan Orlando, to Zay Babineaux, to Asher Garcia, to Nadine Zhu, to Lucas Friar… Lucas… Huckleberry, that…</p><p> </p><p>Pause. Pause! <em>It was great, actually. For a minute there, I was… concerned it wouldn’t be. But then it turned out to be the best in a long time.</em> Spinning, spinning, cars everywhere, how can you cross? Why had Riley gone and put those thoughts in her head? Why… why was she even letting herself get freaked out over it again? She was supposed to move past it, wasn’t she? Not through the traffic, just turn back the way she’d come, where the streets were clear, no clutter, no cars spinning by, no wondering about <em>what</em>… her and him, her and…</p><p> </p><p>Unpause… Mr. Matthews was looking at her. She coughed, sitting up in her chair. Pulling her arms to rest them on her desk, she knew one of her elbows had been on <em>his</em> desk again. She never even knew she was doing it, did she? Like some part of her insisted on this maneuver.</p><p> </p><p>Old life, new life, and now the mixed life… No matter how many times she saw it in action, it just never stopped surprising her, like… static shock, right when she least expected it, even though she should. She should be hearing that electricity in the air all the time, but she didn’t, and then… zap. There was Riley, there was Mr. Matthews, in her school, with her friends, every one going about their day like normal, because now it was <em>their</em> school, <em>their</em> friends, and Mr. Matthews’ students, and as much as she was a part of it, so were they.</p><p> </p><p>It had to be normal, for her to be a bit thrown by it all, didn’t it? After one year of remaking her life without them here they were, with her again, but in a brand-new setting, the setting of this new life she had made for herself. The Maya Hart they knew wasn’t the same one the people here in Austin knew. What if <em>that</em> Maya, the one from New York, came back through them, like a lost shadow clinging to her heels all over again? For a while, all she’d wanted was to get that girl back, but now it just felt like she wouldn’t fit anymore, not here, not in this new version of her, not with her new friends.</p><p> </p><p>No matter how much time went by it always came back to this, always, when she thought once and for all she’d found her way, something came to try and prove her wrong. She could never escape it, ever.</p><p> </p><p>It almost made it sound like she wasn’t happy that they were here, which… couldn’t be any further from the truth, not at all. Even if she got shocked with static at every turn, even if those four words had thrown her mind to chaos, she was also just so overjoyed to have Riley back in her life, and Mr. Matthews, and Mrs. Matthews, and Auggie, too.</p><p> </p><p>All this, all the confusion, it would pass. She knew it would if she only gave it time. Right now, it felt impossible, right now, it was chaos, but it wouldn’t stay that way. Some time ago she wouldn’t have known this. Some time ago she might have ignored it all and counted herself fortunate for knowing to do so, but that wasn’t her anymore, and as much as it pained her now, she knew <em>she</em> was the fortunate one, the one who had started to allow herself to feel it all. And that was how she knew it would pass.</p><p> </p><p>The feeling that stuck right about now, as the reality of her surroundings came back to light, was nervousness. It was stupid, wasn’t it? Last fall, when she’d started here, she’d felt it, too. They didn’t know her then, and she’d had to show them who she was. Now they knew her, it was easier. Mr. Matthews, he knew her… That is, he knew the old her. He didn’t know the new her yet, and somehow having to show her to him, it felt the same as those first days. She had to let him see who she was, and it was making her like this.</p><p> </p><p>She picked up her pencil, smoothing out the blank page of her notebook. They weren’t really doing anything yet that would warrant her needing to take notes, but it was a gesture, her way of presenting herself as focused and ready to listen, ready to learn.</p><p> </p><p>Mr. Matthews looked at her, and he gave her a quick nod before turning back to the rest of the class, explaining what they would be doing this year. Despite everything, the biggest take away that Maya could find here was that their school had gained a great new history teacher to replace Mr. Jiménez. They might take a while to get used to his way of doing things, but she sure was glad for that presence. Who knew, he might have shown up just in time to help make sense of the mess she was in… or it might just be beyond his reach, maybe it was just something she had to do for herself.</p><p> </p><p>Her elbow had found its way back on that desk again. Her hand was ready to take notes if and when she had to. Old life, new life… Maybe she’d call her new color ‘Four little words.’</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0138"><h2>138. Their Class With Volunteers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had put her elbow on his desk earlier. Then she’d taken it away. And now she’d put it back. He’d watched this little dance in silence, wondering if he should be cutting in.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been doing this lean back thing since yesterday, since he’d started sitting behind her, at least he thought so. To his knowledge, whenever he’d looked back the year before, when Zay had been the one sat behind her, he had never seen her with her arm leaning back that way, so unless he’d just missed it…</p><p> </p><p>Either way, he had noticed it, noticed this, and as much as it might have bothered him, it really didn’t. If anything, it bothered him right now that she’d stopped, because he knew there was something on her mind, and he was starting to think that – despite the fact that he really hadn’t done anything wrong as far as he knew – it had to do with him. If it did, then he’d get to the bottom of it, and if it didn’t, then… what could it be?</p><p> </p><p>New year, new class, new teacher, but not really, and… Was she nervous? Was that what it was? He guessed it might make sense, yeah… Yeah… That had to be it, and if it was, then… then maybe he could help. The question now was how. For one brief, strange moment he considered reaching out and tickling the elbow stuck at the edge of his desk, but then just as quickly he recognized this as a foolish thought that would only aggravate her more than anything else. It would help if he could see her face instead of the back of her head. If he was next to her, or better yet facing her…</p><p> </p><p>He would one day remember this as one of those moments where, it seemed, the universe just decided to throw him a bone, so promptly that it felt like someone had read his mind. Because in the very next seconds, Mr. Matthews asked his class for a volunteer to come up to the front of the class.</p><p> </p><p>This being the first class of the year, the first one with this person they didn’t know, the others were slow to put their hands up, and his went high in a second.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go,” he offered, maybe a bit more eager sounding than he’d intended, going off the looks he got from his classmates. The teacher only looked glad that someone sounded motivated.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on up, Mr. Friar.”</p><p> </p><p>He stood and walked over to stand next to his new teacher, nodding to him before looking back at the class, doing his best not to look like he was focusing on Maya when he was… focusing on Maya. He also had to pay attention to what Mr. Matthews wanted him to do, or else he’d look like an even bigger fool. At least now he was where he needed to be.</p><p> </p><p>The look he’d gotten of Maya up to this point might have been a bit tainted by the surprise of what he’d just done, but at the same time wasn’t it sort of part of what he was trying to do? Taking away this nervous feeling he’d been guessing had been the cause of her acting so strange today? A little start to the system, that could take them to where they needed to be, yeah?</p><p> </p><p>At least he knew what he was doing. The looks he was getting from most of his friends told him they had absolutely no idea where this was coming from. Dylan seemed kind of amused, but then that was Dylan. And Riley didn’t look thrown either, but then she was new. And then Maya, well… Zay and Nadine right in front seemed to be both of them whispering at him, asking him what he was doing. Then Asher in the back, who had been sitting next to him, only <em>he</em> seemed at once puzzled and maybe just a bit more aware. Had he seen him looking at her?</p><p> </p><p>And so, what if he did? She was his friend, and he was worried for her, or he could see she was nervous, and he wanted to help. What was so wrong about that?</p><p> </p><p>“Now I’ve been looking over your old teacher’s assignments from last year, and one that caught my eye was about looking into a past historical event from the perspective of someone who lived it, is that right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, sir,” Lucas nodded, giving himself as much of an air of confidence and self-assuredness as he could manage, in the hopes that it would help Maya to take some of that in and not feel so nervous as she did. Mr. Matthews asked what his group did. “We, Zay and Maya and me, we interviewed my grandfather. We call him Pappy Joe.”</p><p> </p><p>“Pappy Joe,” Mr. Matthews repeated, looking and sounding tickled by this. “Is your whole family here in Austin?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, no, I have some up in Lubbock, and my other grandfather is in Arizona. The rest is here.”</p><p> </p><p>“The ones over there, born here I assume?” he asked, and Lucas nodded. “How far back can you trace your family tree?” he asked. Lucas thought, and he had to shrug. He knew about a couple of great grandparents, but that was it. He said as much, and Mr. Matthews pointed to the board before handing him chalk. “Go ahead and draw what you know?” Lucas took the bit of chalk before turning to the board. He wasn’t sure where this would lead, but he at least knew why he was doing it.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0139"><h2>139. Their Class With Contrast</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had only sort of heard Mr. Matthews ask for someone to come up, and by the time she had processed it, Lucas had already raised his hand and taken up the charge. His voice had come so suddenly, and she looked back just as he got up and went to stand in front. She couldn’t say why it startled her the way it did. She just kept on staring at the two of them standing there, and maybe for a while she wasn’t thinking about the question, all of that. What she <em>was </em>thinking about was the project Mr. Matthews had brought up.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered it, of course. She mostly remembered how she’d gotten upset and run off, only to get lost. And when she’d found her way back, Lucas was there, waiting for her, worried for her. That was just who he was, wasn’t it? He worried for those he cared about. In the last year, she’d given him plenty of occasions to display this trait… she’d go so far as to say too much. And he’d still been there, every time, without fail. Today was no exception. She could see it in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>He knew something was going on, he just didn’t know what, so he kept at it. And now, realizing this, she had to wonder if this was what that was, why he’d gone up there so fast, whatever he was trying to achieve in the process… Now she was just looking at him up there, and it was all she could do not to just smile…</p><p> </p><p>She listened as he spoke about his family, and she could almost see it in her head, gaggles of Friars, looking like him but not exactly. There was no way there existed many more like him; the world was not that kind.</p><p> </p><p>Mr. Matthews instructed him to draw his family tree on the board and, as Lucas worked, he instructed the rest of them to do the same on a sheet of paper. By the look he momentarily turned to her, she knew he was highly aware of what he was asking her; he couldn’t scrap a whole lesson plan because her family situation was… complicated.</p><p> </p><p>So, she sat forward, looking at the blank page. She drew a square at the bottom. MAYA PENELOPE HART. Above and to the right, she put her mother in a square of her own. She knew the names of her mother’s parents, of course, and up came two more squares. Her secret weapon here was that she could trace at least one… branch of her tree a few more lines up. She remembered one fall when she’d been smaller, being upset at having had to do a thing in school… not dissimilar to this, actually, and having so few squares that she could fill. Her mother had told her about the people she knew, and then after that, she had taken her to a library where they had looked some things up. Maya had committed all she could to memory, and as her maternal branch strengthened, she let it flourish until it took up so much of the space that you almost didn’t see the currently inexistent other side. Her tree was curved and crooked, but that was alright. It was her tree.</p><p> </p><p>On the other side though, she did have to acknowledge she hadn’t been born of her mother alone. Kermit… Her father… her biological parent who was a man but not a father to her, was called Kermit. She wrote his name, on the opposite branch next to her mother. She didn’t put a square around him. She knew <em>his</em> parents’ names, but they were as inexistent to her as he was, so why bother?</p><p> </p><p>She looked at her crooked tree and unmoored parent, and her mind eventually wandered – as it had to – toward Shawn. If the day ever came, he would get a square around his name… in a heartbeat. Of course, she had to imagine this exercise would be about as trying to him as it was to her, with how things were with <em>his</em> family.</p><p> </p><p>The tree Lucas had drawn on the board was vast and well garnished in branches, in names, on both sides. It didn’t go as high as hers did, but it was just as well, or he would have run out of space a long time ago. He found her looking, and at once he looked like he regretted having volunteered, having put on display for her to see the difference between her tree and his. She responded by smiling. It was okay, it really was. Who would she be if she held the fact that he had a large and tightly knit family against him, just because she didn’t? She was glad for him.</p><p> </p><p>He smiled back, the kind of smile that sent a breeze all around from the expelled breath of relief which had created it. Mr. Matthews sent him back to sit, as he told the class they would come back to this over the course of the year, so they would need to keep hold of their trees. As for Lucas’ chalk tree, it would be reproduced for him in thanks for his volunteering, along with another advantage to come.</p><p> </p><p>Maya showed Lucas her tree when he came to sit again. He looked at her for a moment before looking at the page. The way his head turned with the curve instead of just turning the book, she had to smirk. He didn’t bring up her father’s side at all.</p><p> </p><p>“A lot of generations,” he told her, and she nodded. He looked back at her, hesitant as he gave the notebook back. “Can we talk? After class?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0140"><h2>140. Their Class With Conversation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rest of the class had gone down as peaceful as they could ever hope it to go, really. Something had changed from the point where Maya had shown him her tree, it felt. Whatever had been throwing her off had sort of gone away now. He still didn’t know what had made her nervous exactly, but he’d had a good enough idea of it, and now it was gone, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>As the class ended, he’d gotten up just as Maya had turned to Zay and asked him to escort Riley to their next class, before turning to the girl and telling her she’d meet her there. After that, she was slow to pick up her things, which left her standing there while the others were quickly departing from the room. So, he did the same. Eventually, they were the only ones left. As she picked up her bag, she turned to him. He <em>had</em> asked if they could talk, hadn’t he? Well here they were.</p><p> </p><p>“Feeling better now?” he asked. She looked back at him in silence for a moment like she wasn’t sure how to respond. “It’s okay, I mean I get it, you were nervous about your old teacher being here, right?” He saw a slight surprise in her eyes, followed by a small smile and a nod, which he found himself matching.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s… that’s what that was, yeah. I… I don’t know, it was just so many bits of me in the same place, I never thought that was going to happen and… I got…”</p><p> </p><p>“Spooked?” he offered, and the thoughts playing through her eyes seemed to say he’d hit the nail on the head. “Well you got through it. It’ll be easier now, won’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>“I really hope so,” she replied as they moved to leave the class together. He didn’t speak, because she didn’t, and he wanted to see if she would. “We talked to Farkle last night,” she finally did, and Lucas smirked, recalling the small bright-eyed boy with the mop of hair and the turtlenecks he had seen in the pictures she had shown all of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Is he doing alright?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Mostly, yeah. He’s looking to transfer to another school now, to be closer to a friend. Hopefully, he’ll be happy there. Couldn’t stand the thought that he wouldn’t be.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re doing all you can for him. I know I’d appreciate that if I was him.” She smiled in thanks before tapping him on the arm.</p><p> </p><p>“I want you guys to meet him. Not in person, I mean one day, maybe, but for now like on Skype, you know? I think you would really like him.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, that sounds good, when do you want to do it?” he nodded immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we might want to give it a couple of weeks. It’ll give Riley time to settle in, and it’ll give Farkle time to settle in, too, with Einstein Academy.” He blinked at the sound of the name, and she chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a real place.” He nodded, laughing along.</p><p> </p><p>This was good. Somehow, whatever had looked to be bothering her earlier had now completely evaporated. Maya was as she had always been, and this made him glad. He had not known himself to be so concerned for any other of his friends the way he was for her. He guessed it was that there were so many things in Maya’s life that would put her in this position, but even so… From day one, it had still felt that there was something different when it came to her. Maya had come into his life, it felt, right when he had needed her the most, and maybe… maybe she’d needed him, too.</p><p> </p><p>“How are things with you and Riley? Is she doing alright, being here?” he asked. He had spent so long hearing about Maya’s friend, how much she cared for her, how much she missed her, and it hadn’t all come together for him until he’d seen Maya with her, just how true that could be. She had genuinely left a part of herself in New York by being apart from her.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s doing great, which is… well, it’s a relief, I guess. I couldn’t stand her being unhappy, and I know that she was, this past year.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well she’s got all of us now, along with you.” Maya beamed at this. “Her dad seems cool, by the way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, don’t let him hear that,” she gave him a look and he laughed and nodded.</p><p> </p><p>The day had gone by as any day would again, finally. It was still an adjustment, new year, new friend and all that, but everyone was in a good place, which had a way of making the time fly by. As they’d walked out of their last class, the group now seven strong were bound for the Orlando house. With the basketball tryouts at the end of the week, they all wanted to get as much practice in as they could get. Maya told them to give Riley the whistle, promising they would find no better motivator.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had to agree with her by the end of the afternoon. Riley Matthews may not have had any aspirations to become a player on any team, but Lucas came to the conclusion that, if being a player wasn’t her place, she could look to be on the other side and be a coach.</p><p> </p><p>The little beastie that emerged out of the girl, who’d been smiling at them for two days, had them in drills and they were loving it. When they could finally stop and collapse in the grass, she flounced off back to the house to get them water and snacks like the beastie had gone away without a trace.</p><p> </p><p>“Is she for real?” Zay called, out of breath and staring at the sky. “What just happened?” Maya just laughed, though she was just as drained as the rest of them. Lucas, sitting there, just across from her, turned back to look at her for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>She said she’d been nervous about Mr. Matthews this morning. But he was thinking back to the moment when she and Riley had first arrived. She’d seemed fine around all the others, it was only with him that she’d been different, that she’d looked sort of distracted and evasive. If that reason she’d given him had been the truth, then… wouldn’t she have been just as distracted with all of them, not just him?</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” she asked him, and he blinked, seeing she was staring back at him. He sort of forgot for a moment there. Then it came back to him, but instead of bringing it up, he just shrugged, saying he’d been distracted, catching his breath.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever had been on her mind, it clearly wasn’t anymore, and he wasn’t about to bring it back up again. It had passed, so it couldn’t have been that important in the long run.</p><p> </p><p>Riley returned, lugging many bottles of water in her arms, with a bag of snacks dangling from each of them. Asher and Dylan had gotten up to help her at once, and the load had been distributed. A toast had been made in honor of Drillmaster Matthews, who gave some kind of seated curtsey in thanks.</p><p> </p><p>“You guys are going to kill those tryouts,” she declared, with a flare of the beastie. Lucas watched as Maya smirked before sending a squirt of ice water at her best friend that made her squeal.</p><p> </p><p>Two days into this new year, Lucas was in as good a place as he had been in a while. The previous year had started with the shadow of his suspension hanging over him, but that wasn’t the case, not anymore. He was starting this year with a blank slate, and he intended to use it well. He was not going back to the way it used to be.</p><p> </p><p>“We have two more afternoons before tryouts,” he told the others. “Let’s use them well.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0141"><h2>141. Their Call to the Weekend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three weeks into this new school year, it was starting to feel like it had all been so great, and on the other end of that statement could be a number of attitudes. It had all been so great, and it was only going to get better. It had all been so great, and they had earned it. It had all been so great, and that could only mean something bad would come along and wreck it all. As best they could, they tried not to veer too close to that lane.</p><p> </p><p>The first part at least was true and was going to remain as such. They had made it through basketball tryouts in one piece and come out on the other side of it, as the boys’ team had welcomed Lucas, Zay, Asher and Dylan, while the girls’ team had welcomed Maya and Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>The news had been welcomed with a dinner at Chubbie’s, the seven of them treated by Lucas’ grandfather. Pappy Joe had known to include Riley in this of course, as Maya had praised her as every bit a part of this as they were. And so, she was.</p><p> </p><p>Since then, they’d all had to adjust to this new part of their lives and of their schedules, though the transition had not been nearly as jarring as they might have expected it to be. It took away from some of the time they all spent together, but then they would rejoin sooner or later, so all in all they really couldn’t complain.</p><p> </p><p>Now their first games were coming up, and it was as nerve wracking as it was thrilling. In the meantime, there was their schoolwork, and this could not be made to suffer. But then they had their Drillmaster both on and off the court, so they didn’t worry.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been particularly glad to see how well Riley had been melding to the group in these past weeks. They had taken her around town the first weekend, and she had taken great pleasure in showing her all these places she had been telling her about for so long. She had still stepped back to allow Guide Babineaux to do his thing, if only so they could continue their game of pretending to be tourists, which had both Maya and Nadine in high form every time.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had found her place in the group. It was all Maya could have dreamed of. It was just how everything was now, no longer tossing her static shock. As for other issues on her mind, those, too, had been given space to breathe and not trouble her so much. That would be a good thing, especially tonight, as the seven of them were now bound for her house for the sleepover three weeks in the making.</p><p> </p><p>It would be just as it had been before, the four boys in the basement, but now the three girls in Maya’s room. Back in New York, when they had slept over at one another’s place, Maya and Riley had simply shared whoever’s bed it was at the time, something she hadn’t done with Nadine here in Texas. So, this time, Maya had decided to forego her own bed and sleep on the floor with Nadine and with Riley. She had her own sleeping bag ready and waiting, while the rest of them had arrived at school that morning with their own in tow.</p><p> </p><p>They had great plans for this sleepover. For one thing, it wasn’t just going to be hanging out and sleeping on Friday, departing on Saturday by lunch time, no. They would sleep over that night, spend Saturday together, and then sleep at Maya’s on Saturday night, too, going home only on Sunday. It seemed only fair, between the new addition <em>and</em> the change to their schedules. The cherry on top would be what they had been anticipating all this time, along with the sleepover. They had set a time, and that night the Austin friends would discover their New York friends’ very own Farkle Minkus.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s mother had been able to drive to the school to come and collect all the sleeping bags and other baggage on her lunch break, taking them back to the house. This left them able to leave school that afternoon, after their respective practices, to meet up on the front steps when they were ready and finally head out to Maya’s house. They went along, sharing stories of the girls’ side, and the boys’ side. Riley would of course sit in the stands on the girls’ side while Maya and Nadine practiced with the team. Many of <em>their</em> stories thus involved Riley calling out tips to her friends, which got her looks from Coach Valdez. The woman only tolerated her – according to Nadine – because they actually were good tips. Even so, Maya was waiting for the day when the coach would finally lose it, which would be hilarious, for her and the team if less so for Riley, who was ready to cut and run on the spot.</p><p> </p><p>Every tradition the six of them introduced Riley into felt to Maya like one more step toward making her even more one of their own than she already was. She could have been afraid that it wouldn’t work, or that it would change things too much, but she really wasn’t, and it really didn’t. She <em>wanted</em> Riley to be a part of this, just like she would want Farkle to be a part of this, if he were here. Well at least, tonight, through the technological assistance of a screen here and a screen there, he would become as much a part of this as he could be expected to be, all the way back in New York. She knew with great confidence that, as much as they had welcomed Riley, they would welcome him, too. No one got left behind.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0142"><h2>142. Their Call to Settle In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wouldn’t be the first time Riley slept here. Wednesday, almost two weeks ago, she’d been here after school, and her mother had asked if she wanted to stay the night. They had jumped at the chance of course, especially once Riley’s parents had said yes. Maya had been so happy, being able to do this again, like it was the most normal thing, when for almost a year… no, a year. That had been the anniversary of their departure from New York, one year ago, and she hadn’t thought about it until then. Maybe her mother had remembered and suggested this because of it, or maybe it had been pure chance. If Riley hadn’t been here in Austin, she would surely have remembered, and she would have been sad. But yes, they hadn’t been able to do something like this in a year, and now they could. Now Maya intended to do it again as often as she could.</p><p> </p><p>The seven of them arrived now, on this Friday afternoon. They found their sleeping bag and other overnight belongings waiting in a long row along the wall by the door. They picked up those that belonged to them, the boys marching down to deposit them in the basement, the girls moving to Maya’s room. They reconvened here, where the boys came to see what both Nadine and Riley had already been marvelling over. Maya had been working on signs for all of them, knowing anyone from her mother to the Matthews and Riley would want to wave something to show their support at the games. All of them were still in progress, but they could still see which ones were theirs, showing their names and numbers on the back of jerseys which would boast the school colors. Here was GARCIA 17, and BABINEAUX 92, ORLANDO 46, and FRIAR 36, along with ZHU 58, and of course HART 48. This last one was presently being gleefully waved by Riley.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had returned home while they were still taking in Maya’s handiwork. Dinner was to be ordered in, as had become tradition at their sleepovers, courtesy of Dylan’s uncle’s diner. As they all packed in around the table, the subject turned back to Maya’s signs, as Lucas suggested how she could make some for the rest of their respective teammates, to be given out to their supporters. He reasoned that they looked great, and people would love them, and Nadine added that the wave of those signs would show them all united against the opposing team. It would be quite an undertaking, though of course they would help in any way they could. So, Maya said that she would consider it. She at least wanted to run it by the teams, so she wouldn’t be doing it all for nothing.</p><p> </p><p>After dinner, as was their wont, they ended up out in the yard, tossing the ball around. Even Riley got into it; she tended to prefer staying on the sidelines, encouraging them, but today she played. She might not have been into joining the team, and would not have made it if she tried, but once in a while she would manage a throw so spectacular that she left the rest of them pleasantly gobsmacked. She would just shrug like it was nothing and carry on with her day.</p><p> </p><p>They had set the call time for seven o’clock their time. It would be later in New York, they knew, but that was the time everyone would be available, so they had to wait. They had this planned, so now they went and did their homework. Maya had found in the last year how much easier it was for her to concentrate on it all when it was all of them together. They never talked too much, they just sat at the same table and that would be enough.</p><p> </p><p>After Mr. Matthews’ first class, they had shown one another their family trees. Lucas had reproduced his by himself, though Mr. Matthews would later give him a neatly computer generated one. Asher’s was fairly detailed, too, as he had long had an interest in genealogy. His family was shown to originate from Colombia on one side, and Spain on the other, some generations back. Zay’s tree was aided by his family’s annual parties bringing a lot of them together, though it was further aided by GiGi afterward. Dylan had done what he could, not knowing too much going even to his grandparents, and then with his mother and stepmother, he hadn’t been too sure how to proceed; Maya had sympathized with him on so many levels. Nadine’s tree had marked her family’s arrival from China, her grandparents on her mother’s side, her great-great-grandparents on her father’s side. Riley’s tree of Matthews and Lawrence family members had felt almost as familiar to her as it did to Maya. She had met many of them over the years.</p><p> </p><p>In the weeks since then, the trees had been polished in a few more classes. Next week, they were supposed to take a trip down to the library to continue working on them. Maya had still been thinking about them, about her blank side, her curved tree now standing tall, if only on that one side. She had made small sort of efforts to fill in the gap on the other side. Like she wanted to think about her birth father, wherever he was, with his new family. Inevitably she did though, and when she did, she would look around at where she was, and who she was, and she would tell herself she lacked nothing, and no one. She did so just now, as she and her friends gathered around the screen, waiting for seven o’clock to come around.</p><p> </p><p>“Are we there yet?” Dylan asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not a road trip, Dyl,” Asher reminded him.</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s seven,” he pointed. Right on cue, the screen gave a ring: incoming call.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0143"><h2>143. Their Call to Meet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The face of Farkle Minkus came up on the screen, and the two girls in Texas who had been his friends since childhood watched as that face registered surprise. They had told him that some friends here wanted to say hello, but maybe he had not expected the cluster of seven sitting there together, staring back at him, saying hello over one another, waving at him…</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, okay, not all at once,” Maya told the others, and they let quiet fall over them so she could speak. “Hey, glad you made it,” she turned back to the screen. The boy, Farkle, gave a nod. Lucas thought, with some surprise of his own, that the strange name actually suited the boy very well.</p><p> </p><p>“Everyone,” Riley addressed the group. “Meet Farkle Minkus. We’ve known him since forever. His parents went to school with mine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Farkle, this is Nadine Zhu, Zay Babineaux, Dylan Orlando, Asher Garcia, and Lucas Friar,” Maya made the introductions here, pointing to each of them in turn as she named them.</p><p> </p><p>It was a wonder they hadn’t done this before, even when Riley was still living back in New York. Since <em>she</em> had come into their world, it had allowed them not only to gain a new friend but to get to know another one better. Farkle was a part of her, too, and Lucas felt privileged to get to know him along with the others.</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s Smackle?” Riley asked. “I thought you said she’d be there, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“She is, she’s running late, and she insisted I should start without her,” he explained. He looked like he had gotten over the initial shock as he looked at all of them staring back at him. “It’s nice to meet all of you. You’re all Maya talked about last year,” he went on, and the blonde gave him a look that might have ruffled the best of them, and might have done the same to him if he wasn’t so very far away. She didn’t look embarrassed in any way, but maybe she was concerned he would tell them things she didn’t want told.</p><p> </p><p>“Good things?” Zay asked, inevitably curious.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah,” Farkle confirmed. “She says you guys are the best people out there.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aww, thanks,” Nadine chuckled, tossing her arms around Maya with a laugh, leading Dylan to get in on it, while Zay contented himself by pressing his hand to the top of her head. Lucas smiled, seeing how <em>she</em> smiled despite also looking like she was about to curl into a ball and roll away. When they finally released her, she straightened herself out and shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… it’s true,” she admitted softly.</p><p> </p><p>“She says plenty about you, too,” Asher told Farkle. “And you, before you came,” he nodded to Riley, who also opted for a pat on the head to show her appreciation. Lucas noted Maya took this one with the smirk of someone familiar to the nearness. There were just boundaries the rest of them could never hope to reach when it came to Maya, the way Riley had done.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you liking your new school?” Lucas asked him. They had heard he had officially made the transfer to Einstein Academy. They could even see he was still wearing his school blazer.</p><p> </p><p>“I am,” Farkle replied. “It took some getting used to at first. Nothing there reminded me of anyone. But I had a friend, so… It wasn’t strange for too long,” he told them. “I’m glad I did it, I’m glad my friends convinced me to take a chance.”</p><p> </p><p>“Those geniuses are lucky to have you,” Maya told him, and he gave her a smile. The impression he left was of someone who thought highly of his friends. Lucas could appreciate that very much.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll send videos of your first games, right?” Farkle asked, and they all promised they would. Someone asked if he played, too. “I haven’t killed anyone yet,” was his response, and it made them all laugh. They went on to show the half-made signs Maya had done for them. Now Lucas thought he could recognize something on the wall behind Farkle, a colorful square… One of Maya’s drawings.</p><p> </p><p>Just then, there was a voice behind the boy on the screen, and he turned to address what they soon recognized without sight as the girl they’d been told would be joining them. A moment later, Farkle got up, went and found another seat he carried to place next to his own, turned his screen to better frame the space, and then he took his seat again, at the same time the girl did. Dark haired and bespectacled, her gaze was fixed in a way that might have been said to be shyness, or maybe something else.</p><p> </p><p>“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Isadora Smackle of Einstein Academy. Smackle, meet everyone.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0144"><h2>144. Their Call to Farkle & Smackle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sitting before them, hair in two neat braids sitting over her shoulders, Isadora Smackle did not look in any way startled to find seven people staring back at her the way Farkle had done. She observed them quietly as the boy at her side repeated the names which he had been told a few minutes earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello,” she spoke just as evenly as one would expect her to, taking in her general demeanor. “I’ve been hearing about you,” she went on, and the rest of them could barely say the same, although they had to guess she couldn’t know that much more about them than they knew about her. Then again, she could be surprising enough that Maya half-expected her to have mounted files on each one of them.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nice to meet you,” Lucas was the first to address her and, to their amusement, it created what could only be described as a reaction. Smackle looked at him on the screen like she was only now seeing him for the first time. She sat up, reached to straighten her glasses.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah… That is, well thank you,” her even tone had briefly been thrown off center, though she pulled it together again, almost baffled with herself. Maya turned to Riley, who looked as amused by this as she did, though at the same time it forced her to admit to herself that of course he would have that effect on girls… and she was in no way immune.</p><p> </p><p>“You must be happy to have your friend at school with you, yeah?” Nadine asked Smackle.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course,” she turned to her. “Farkle belongs at Einstein Academy, he should have been one of us a long time ago instead of at a regular school,” she stated, and had they not understood she was just being truthfully blunt, they might have been insulted just a bit, though they couldn’t have said why exactly.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, but besides that?” Riley asked. Smackle looked at her for a moment like she didn’t understand the question before turning to Farkle.</p><p> </p><p>“It feels good to be teammates now rather than adversaries. Those days are behind us, aren’t they?” He nodded in agreement. “Farkle is my friend,” she added, and when he smiled, she did, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it just me or are they adorable?” Zay whispered from the back of the pack, which made Maya snort before she could control the urge to giggle.</p><p> </p><p>“So why the late hour?” she managed to ask them. It would be just after eight o’clock for them, which in itself wasn’t necessarily that late, but in this context, with the two of them there and only available now, she had been wondering.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re leaving soon for an overnight field trip with the astronomy club,” Farkle revealed. “We had to wait for it to get dark.”</p><p> </p><p>Asher had been quickly interested in this, revealing he, too, was in an astronomy club, although he’d had to leave it this year because his schedule no longer allowed it. The look on Smackle’s face only reignited Maya’s theory about the files, like she would whip one out now and say ‘yes, I know, and you won this and that award in this year and that.’</p><p> </p><p>“That’s so funny, we’re having a sleepover and they are, too,” Dylan noted with a grin. “Maybe we should sleep in the backyard instead of the basement, then we could see the stars, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve never actually slept in a sleeping bag before,” Smackle informed them. “But I imagine they produce an effect not unlike a chrysalis… or a womb.” There was a beat of silence before Zay replied.</p><p> </p><p>“Mostly it feels like the ground in your back.” Smackle took this in with a nod and ‘huh,’ before adding that she wasn’t exactly looking forward to this part of the trip, but she would try it out, because that was the sensible thing to do.</p><p> </p><p>Maya liked how this was going so far. This was their first time all talking together, so it would be natural for them to be finding their way like this, but as she listened to her friends back in New York get into the subject of astronomy with Asher, she could see a potential for them to become even more, and she really could not have asked for more.</p><p> </p><p>When Smackle had to briefly excuse herself and step out, this gave Maya an idea, and she called for Riley and Nadine to come with her for a moment. They looked puzzled, but they stood and followed her.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t mind us,” she told the others. “Continue, we’ll be right back,” she nodded before nudging the two girls out into the hall and toward the kitchen, where her mother was busted, sneaking a cookie from GiGi’s equally traditional offering. She innocently offered out the tin before asking if they needed anything. The girls eagerly grabbed a cookie each, while Maya told her mother she figured it would be nice for Farkle and the guys to have a moment to themselves.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0145"><h2>145. Their Call to the Guys</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had watched the girls step out before turning back to the boy on the screen. He wasn’t exactly sure, but he had a feeling like Maya had exited with Nadine and Riley at that precise moment for a reason. So, he went with it, moving into the seat she had just vacated and giving hers and Riley’s friend a nod.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at him, Lucas didn’t know why but he felt that, if their paths had been brought to cross in person, they could very easily have become great friends already. There was so little evidence there for him to make this assumption, really. Everything he knew about him, which wasn’t really all that much to begin with, had been relayed to him by someone else. He had only tonight had his first contact with him, and this had been brief, too, so far.</p><p> </p><p>But then between what he did know and what he could see of him, it filled Lucas with this sense he could not shake, like Farkle Minkus belonged in his circle of friends just as much as Maya, as Riley, as any one of them here tonight.</p><p> </p><p>“I know you guys have been good for Maya to have around since she moved down to Texas, and now the same for Riley. They’re really important to me, so… thank you,” Farkle spoke in earnest.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t mention it,” Asher promised with a nod. “We couldn’t do without them either, so… we get it.” The others nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“And they care a lot about you, too,” Lucas told him; it made him happy to hear. “You know, if you ever wanted to talk, not through them,” he motioned back to the door to indicate the girls, “We could do that.”</p><p> </p><p>“We could?” Farkle asked, as though he believed he was being pranked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, why not?” Lucas asked, hoping to sound encouraging. “It might not be a bad idea to have a contact, we do share some important people.” He genuinely meant it, though he could see Zay, Asher and Dylan looked just this side of surprised by the spontaneity of his offer, not against it all, just surprised.</p><p> </p><p>“I think… I’d like that,” Farkle replied after a moment, and the tone in his voice made Lucas wonder if this was the start of Farkle’s having any guy friends at all. If that was the case, then he was more than up to the task. In the next moment, they had exchanged contact information.</p><p> </p><p>“You have to have stories about them, yeah?” Dylan asked Farkle after this.</p><p> </p><p>“Plenty,” he confirmed with a nod. “I don’t know if I can tell some of them,” he spoke almost more to himself than them. For a moment he seemed to be sorting through anecdotes in his head, deeming some of them as not to be shared, others only maybe.</p><p> </p><p>“What happens if you do?” Zay asked, but Lucas felt he understood. It would be like any of <em>them</em> telling privileged information to near strangers. He couldn’t know what Maya or Riley had or hadn’t told them.</p><p> </p><p>“When I was little, I used to feel bad about my name. People made fun of it, and me. Riley and Maya, they thought it was funny at first, too, but then Riley, she helped me learn to appreciate it, and Maya… well they never made fun of it for too long once she found out about them saying anything. That’s who they are,” he told them. Lucas liked to hear it. It certainly sounded like them.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you ever been to Texas?” Asher asked.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Farkle answered. “My mother has family down there, actually. But she doesn’t talk to them, so we’ve never visited them. They live in Dallas, but that’s about all I know, except sometimes she’ll talk about them like they’re weird people. I’m not even sure if they’re actually real anymore.” Lucas thought about Mr. Matthews and the family trees, imagined a branch of Farkle’s tree sort of marked off to the side like it needed pruning. “I would like to go sometime… especially now,” he admitted, no doubt thinking of Riley and Maya. “Maybe someday.”</p><p> </p><p>“Did they leave?” Smackle’s voice was heard just before she reappeared on the screen, sitting in the chair Farkle had brought her.</p><p> </p><p>“No, they just stepped out, I’ll go see,” Lucas stood and went out to find the three girls and Maya’s mother stood around the kitchen, eating cookies. “Guys?” he called. Maya looked to him, then to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“Say, would you boys come and give me a hand real quick?” Maya’s mother asked. “Couple minutes, I’d really appreciate it.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas decided not to question this, and so the boys left Maya’s room as the girls returned. He could just hear the girl in question tell Farkle they wanted a moment with Smackle, ‘just us girls.’</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0146"><h2>146. Their Call to the Girls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It hadn’t specifically been her plan to orchestrate these smaller conversations, the guys, the girls, but then it had sort of felt like the thing to do, back when Smackle had stepped out. She wanted Farkle to get to know the guys, and for the guys to get to know him, without her or Riley there to steer the talk. And then at the same time there was Smackle. The way she saw it, she could benefit from this, too.</p><p> </p><p>When she had come back into the room with Riley and Nadine, having vacated the boys’ presence on both sides, they sat around the screen where their friend back in New York looked puzzled but also intrigued.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, it’s a shame you guys didn’t get to hang out, really, before Maya came down here,” Riley commented, as though she hadn’t said something to that effect many times in the past weeks, even when Riley was herself on Smackle’s side of the screen and not here sitting next to her.</p><p> </p><p>But then no matter how often she said it, Maya knew it was still true. At first, she had found the girl from Einstein Academy a lot to deal with, a little weird, but then between Riley, and Farkle… ‘a little weird’ seemed right up her alley, as friendship criteria went. And then it hadn’t stayed so much a concern for too long. Naturally, Isadora Smackle would never be anyone but who she was, but then that was anything but a problem. It was who she was, and it suited her. She wore who she was with pride and dignity and recognizing this had made Maya grow to appreciate her presence in her world more and more as the weeks had gone by.</p><p> </p><p>After finding out about Farkle’s desire to transfer to Einstein Academy and be with her, Maya had written to Smackle, to open up the channels of communication between them a bit further. Now that Riley was here with her in Austin, she couldn’t be out there, letting her know how Farkle was doing, especially now that he was struggling with a second departure. She had quickly been given reassurance, seeing that he had someone there to be a great friend, someone who would look out for him. Smackle may have had her own way of doing things, but Maya could see the results spoke for themselves.</p><p> </p><p>She had been keeping her posted ever since. It wasn’t as though she was a spy. But she would tell Maya about what was happening back in New York. All at once, she’d get to hear about Farkle, but she would also feel that sharing these accounts with her was something that helped Smackle, too. Looking at her now, she could see it; she was just noticeably more at ease with him than she remembered her to be in their first talks.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re looking forward to your field trip?” Riley asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I guess,” Smackle replied, sounding maybe halfway motivated. “The stars, of course. I wouldn’t be going out there, parading in my night clothes in front of my whole class and sleeping in a… puffy envelope on the ground, if I didn’t want to do the activity itself.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well that answers that,” Nadine nodded to herself.</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re close to Farkle, he talks in his sleep,” Riley told Smackle, and Maya laughed, remembering another sleepover, when they were eight. “You can keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t get all tangled up. That should distract you from the rest.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good point,” Smackle nodded appreciatively. “I keep picturing my glasses disappearing in the night. And what if I can’t sleep? Or people snore? Or… other noises… What if there’s too many of us too close and someone steps on my head?” The more she went on, the more it sounded like the scales were tipping toward her not wanting to go.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hey, Isadora, it’s alright,” Maya called her back to attention. “It’s just a sleepover, kids like us have been doing it for ages. Just… stick with Farkle. That’s the best thing anyone can do, really.”</p><p> </p><p>Smackle took this advice with a nod, a sort of internal show of confidence given to herself. She was one of the smartest people Maya knew, but she was also this, and this might have been the best part. All their lives had been changed when <em>she</em>’d moved, and <em>Riley</em> had moved. The relationships they’d had, the ones they might have grown to have, they had been changed because of that. Isadora Smackle being who she was, where she was, that still felt like the world giving them a relief.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to go soon,” she told the girls before long. “Should I get Farkle back in here?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Maya told her, and Smackle went to get him. This had been a good introduction, she felt. Her friends weren’t strangers to one another anymore, as it should be.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll let you guys talk to him,” Nadine told Maya and Riley before getting up to leave the room. Maya watched her go before looking to Riley, who was watching the screen, waiting for their friend to return. They had been close, the past year, they would have needed to be. As alright as she was, it was there in her face that she missed him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0147"><h2>147. Their Call to Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As Farkle returned to sit with them on his side of the call, Maya wondered if they’d realized yet how long it might be before they saw each other in person again. She remembered how it had felt for her when she had understood it. Even now, she didn’t know how long it would be before she saw Farkle, or Smackle. And if it weren’t for Riley moving here, she would have been right in that same unknown box with them.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She hadn’t been aware of her own hand reaching for Riley’s in that moment, but she took it as a sign. Some things needed to be said, no matter how difficult they would be to say or hear.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s something that I never told you guys about, something that happened months ago,” she started. “I got upset, about something that happened here, and it made me feel like I missed you all too much, and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I tried to run away.”</p><p> </p><p>“You did what?” Riley asked, not shouting, more stunned.</p><p> </p><p>“What happened?” Farkle asked. She shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>“That part’s not important,” she promised. That might not have been the truth, but it would have to be. She didn’t want Riley to think any less of their friends. “But I left here, late one night. I was going to go on my own and take a train and ride all the way back to New York.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, that’s dangerous, you could have gotten hurt, or worse,” Riley clasped her hand like she wanted to remind herself that everything was fine, that <em>she</em> was fine.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s what they said. Lucas, Zay, they figured it out, and they came to stop me. But I still wanted to go, so they decided to come with me, except then we found out how impossible it would be for three kids our age to go alone like that. In the end, my mother came and found us and took us home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Farkle asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Because I didn’t want to worry you guys for nothing?” Maya shrugged. “But I’m telling you now, because I want you two to understand, those feelings, they can just sort of sneak up on you out of nowhere, and if they do… I don’t want you to be afraid to say anything.”</p><p> </p><p>Her friends looked back at her, in person, on screen… They understood, at least she hoped they did. Farkle looked sad, as did Riley… She looked like she was about to cry, and Maya gave her hand a squeeze of solidarity. Then she remembered where they were. All these sleepovers… Now she regretted having said it in that moment, only to a point. Sooner or later it had to be said. Maybe this was actually the best time. Farkle would walk away from this, off to watch the stars with Isadora Smackle, and Riley would be surrounded by a group of new friends who would make her feel less lonely in a heartbeat.</p><p> </p><p>“My father’s calling, he’s driving us out,” Farkle told them a minute later. “I have to go. Thank you for introducing us to everyone.” They said their goodbyes, and soon their friend’s face was gone, and it was just the two of them sitting in Maya’s room.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” she asked Riley, brushing at her hair with a caring smile. Her friend nodded, looking back at her.</p><p> </p><p>“You could have told me, you know?” she told Maya, and the blonde said she knew, even though she still knew why she couldn’t back then. She hugged her and, when they didn’t look like they were a mess anymore, they went to find their friends.</p><p> </p><p>“Why do these sleepovers always involve someone crying?” she sighed, which managed to make Riley chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother’s excuse to get the boys away turned out to have been to help her clean out the trunk of the car. For having come up with it on the spot, Maya had to hand it to her mother for having taken care of those two things at once and not making it look like a chore. At this point, sorting through all that might have been nearer to a treasure hunt. Nadine had already come to find them inspecting a box of snack cakes to see if they were still good after having been stuck there under something heavy.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m pretty sure those were Hildy’s… or her mother’s, when it was their car,” Katy told the boys.</p><p> </p><p>“But they could still be okay,” Dylan maintained.</p><p> </p><p>Gathered once again in the living room, Maya decided it was time for a movie. She still felt bad for having told Riley about her run so suddenly, and a movie seemed like the quickest way to get the seven of them packed in close and having fun. Some comedy, some action, and a bit of gushy romance thrown in, that would do it. She was successful. Soon, Riley was her smiling self again, no shadow of sadness left in sight.</p><p> </p><p>When the movie was over, thinking of Farkle and Smackle and their Einstein Academy Astronomy Club, they had ended up out in the yard, looking up at the night sky. Asher would stand there, pointing at one thing or another, as though they could see what he saw, and tell them some fact or another. Thinking about the friends they missed, none of them were as invested as Maya and Riley. Looking at those stars, listening to Asher, they could feel themselves that much closer to them.</p><p> </p><p>The idea of sleeping in the yard had been tossed aside by an unforeseen and very sudden rain shower, which sent the seven friends dashing for the house before they were soaked through, last of all Dylan, who hadn’t met a rain fall he didn’t run through with excitement, and Asher, who of course had to go and bring him back. A round of towel drying later, it looked like the time was coming for the boys to retreat to the basement and the girls to Maya’s room. This didn’t mean bedtime, not here, no. This meant war.</p><p> </p><p>Riley was confused but excited, as Maya and Nadine converged with her to come up with a sneak assault on the basement people. Then she shouted and pointed to the windows, where they could just see four heads ducking low in the rain. Maya and Nadine dashed to lock the windows before they could climb through and drag a whole lake in with them. They were laughing, pretending to be sea creatures.</p><p> </p><p>“The doors, come on!” Maya called, and the girls ran out of the room, splitting to lock the front door, the back door, and all the windows before returning to Maya’s room, cool as cucumbers and sitting in the bay window, looking around until they heard knocking at the windows behind them.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you hear something?” Nadine asked, putting on her best Texas drawl.</p><p> </p><p>“That rain is really coming down,” Maya shook her head, following her lead.</p><p> </p><p>“The poor little things…” Riley added, and the others gave her an approving smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“How long should we leave them out there?” Nadine asked. One of them, they couldn’t say which, had started a steady rhythm of taps at the windowpane.</p><p> </p><p>“Well we’re not letting them in through here…” Maya imagined what her room would look like after. “The longer we wait though…”</p><p> </p><p>So, they stood, and walked casually to the back door to meet their fate, knowing very well that they had won this round… and the next would be even worse. They couldn’t wait.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0148"><h2>148. Their Art With Collaboration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It seemed impossible that October was now well begun. Yet here they were, sitting in art class, with leaves falling outside the windows. They didn’t pay too much attention to those though, as they were presented with an opportunity that would soon consume the next week of their lives. Several of the art classes in the school here and even around the city would be having a show under the theme of collaboration. Any and all of them were welcome to participate, and there was only one rule: they had to divide and do the work with one other or more, preferably classmates, but also others if they so wished.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had barely needed to look at Maya to know she would want in on this, and she did. By the time they walked out of class and started for the cafeteria, they had all signed up as a group. He could tell that not only was she excited, but she also already had ideas working through her head. They were sitting around their table, the last tray having been placed there for all of a second, before she presented her idea.</p><p> </p><p>“Living art,” she announced, with something like a flourish. Most of them looked back at her with confused stares. “No one?” she asked, and Asher raised his hand. “Mr. Garcia, you have the floor,” she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“So you take a painting, a big one, create the background, then put real people for some of the characters in it, with costumes, and makeup to make them look like they’re part of the painting. Then they stand there and don’t move… They become part of the painting.” Maya gave him an approving nod. “Sounds good, but how long would we have to stay up there? Some people, and I’m not naming names, can’t stay in one place for that long.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, man,” Zay patted his arm, and Asher gave him a look. “Oh…”</p><p> </p><p>“We can take breaks,” Maya told them and the others. “Or we could alternate, although… well we wouldn’t all be able to be the same characters, unless we recruit Joey,” she nodded to Asher. “But that’ll just make it more interesting, then people will have to come and see us more than once to see it all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Would we have time to do all that? With class, homework, practice, and double game day tomorrow,” Nadine counted off on her fingers. The next day, with the boys’ basketball team playing in the morning, and the girls’ in the afternoon, was already going to be a block of prime work time gone for this project they’d signed themselves up for.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll make it work,” Maya promised. “It’s collaboration, isn’t it? Divide and conquer, we can make it work.” She looked so motivated that it was hard for any of them not to feel the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, I’m in,” Lucas nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Me, too,” Asher followed. “I can talk to Joey.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have basketball practice, I can do things then,” Riley offered.</p><p> </p><p>“Coach Valdez will be so pleased,” Nadine teased. “Alright.”</p><p> </p><p>Soon, Zay and Dylan had agreed to it as well. Now all they had to do was find their painting. They could go one of two ways, recreation or complete creation. This part would be left to ‘team leader’ Maya. She promised to have it figured out by the next night.</p><p> </p><p>“Some of my best ideas come when I’m playing,” she grinned.</p><p> </p><p>Already all through their afternoon, Lucas could see, even sitting behind her, that as much as she was paying attention to their teachers, she was also trying to come up with a choice for their display. A few times he saw her shake her head and pointedly cross out something that she’d written down. As much as he would have liked to help on this part, he guessed he was better off leaving it to her. So, he did.</p><p> </p><p>He had to say, he was actually very intrigued by the concept of it. The more he tried to imagine it, he could see why she felt so motivated. He at least told her as much, seeing as he couldn’t help with the selection part. She had looked like she’d needed to hear it, like it gave her a second wind.</p><p> </p><p>Even when he got home that night, it was on his mind. He tried to think about poses, and how long he would be able to hold. The exhibition was meant to be for several hours, so the trade-ins would be essential. They could have a curtain, closing it to switch out, without breaking the illusion.</p><p> </p><p>That night, Maya sent out a text to say they would do a complete creation, not a recreation, as it would leave them more room to improvise with what was at their disposal. She still needed to make their inspiration piece, to be displayed alongside the life size one, but it was a start. Lucas replied with his curtain idea, and she agreed.</p><p> </p><p>Later, he received another text, and it was Riley’s idea that set them in motion as she wrote: <em>Maya, we could do one of your drawings.</em></p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0149"><h2>149. Their Art With Brainstorms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had not grown up thinking she would someday be on any sports team at school, but now here she was, a member of the girls’ basketball team, and she was loving every moment of it, game days most of all. She would put on that number forty-eight and, all of a sudden, she would walk a little different. She was going to go out there and they were going to win.</p><p> </p><p>This time around, there <em>was</em> something more on her mind of course as she was picked up by Riley and her parents. There was the painting. Her mother would come after lunch for her game. Until then, she and Nadine and Riley would watch the boys’ game in the stands. It was just the feeling they had predicted a month before, to see the signs she’d ended up making for the two teams, spread out across the supporters. Maya, Riley and Nadine would be waving their own seventeen, thirty-six, forty-six, and ninety-two for Asher, Lucas, Dylan, and Zay. They might have been the loudest in attendance, when the three of them shouted as one, only rivalled by Riley and the boys when Maya, Nadine, and the rest of the girls played.</p><p> </p><p>The boys’ game that morning had been one to get them within an inch of losing their voices, with the opposing team building an early lead that seemed to get more and more insurmountable, until… they had started to climb, higher, and higher, until they were gaining on that gap, eating away at it, and then, just as the end seemed too close to gain the lead, there had been Dylan to win it all for them, and the crowd had gone wild.</p><p> </p><p>They’d all met for lunch, and as was to be expected, they could talk of nothing else but the game. It wasn’t until she and Nadine had gone off to join their team in preparation for the afternoon’s game that Maya realized, in all that time, she hadn’t thought of their art collaboration at all. She had promised them something by that evening, and she was going to have to keep that promise.</p><p> </p><p>Next thing she knew, she was out there on the court, looking up into the stands. There was her mother, a glittering 48 on each cheek and a sign in her hands. There were the four Matthews, all of them as decked out as her. And there were their four heroes of the morning, lined up next to Riley. All of them to support her and Nadine and the team… How could she not give it her all when she had that?</p><p> </p><p>“Living art…” she released the words along with a breath. She didn’t know why it was that out here she could think differently than she did anywhere else, but that was how it was. Maybe all the running around made the wheels in her head spin faster.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t just think about her group’s project though. She still had to play the game, so she did. Almost to get it out of her system, she had been the first to get points on the board that day. After this her team had started to do the same. So long as they kept up that way, they would be in a good place.</p><p> </p><p>After the game, they would all be going out to dinner. That was the tradition, especially on double game day, or that was what they’d been told by their coaches and some teammates; this was their first double game day. Maya already knew she would be there, celebrating with their friends the boys’ victory, so they might as well have two wins to celebrate, right?</p><p> </p><p>They would all be there, by no means a rare, occasion, but with everything else that would have happened that day, it would only be better. No, not better, just… louder. She loved being around the teams, she did, but if she had to choose, oh, it would only be the seven of them, and no one else, except, in a perfect world, two more, in person and not on a screen. It was not a perfect world though, and she wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting for it to be. They had <em>this</em> world, and whatever it chose to throw at them, they would take it on, no problem. They had each other for that.</p><p> </p><p>“Take on the world…” she breathed, and she smiled, as Nadine passed her the ball, and she passed it on to Allie Catalano, their captain, who threw… and scored. And that was the game. They’d won, by a margin. As the team celebrated, she turned to the stands, finding her wild bunch, and she shouted. “I got it!” They may or may not have heard her, and they may or may not have understood what she was referring to, but that was alright. She had figured out the project, <em>and</em> they’d won. It was the kind of feeling she could never put into words. All she knew was that, as special as it was, she wanted it to stay special.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya!” Nadine appeared out of nowhere, halfway tackling her to the ground, and Maya hugged her for all of a second before more of the team piled on and she gave up trying to tell Nadine she’d gotten the idea right now. She could put it aside and focus on the game, or the victorious outcome of it. Soon they would be out of there, off to the big dinner, though she would have to wait until later to share the idea. There would be a better time and place. It was Saturday, and they could meet up, maybe at her house, or at Riley’s. Oh, what a day…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0150"><h2>150. Their Art With Portraits</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were tired, but floating on their good day, their energy seemed to burn that much longer. After the dinner, they had been allowed to go back to Maya’s house, but only under a few conditions. The first was that they had one hour that night, and that was why the second thing was that there would be no arguing condition one, because their parents would be out in the living room waiting to drive them home.</p><p> </p><p>“In here, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Maya called, wheeling her hand around to incite the others to get into her room. Once they were all in – “You, too, Joey!” – she gave a quick smile to the parents and siblings sitting and standing out there and shut the door. “One hour, okay, we… Joey, sit,” she frowned, before remembering it was the first time he had been in her house or her room. She saw him more than she used to, now that he went to their school, but it could still be the strangest thing to see this boy who had the same face as one of her closest friends but behaved so differently that they might as well have been regular siblings and not identical twins.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what’s the plan?” Nadine asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, <em>we</em> are… Sort of…” Maya explained, turning to scan her walls, her drawings, until she could find those she wanted to show. “It’s this,” she pointed to the one they had all seen that first time, six of them in the grass on the night of their first sleepover. “It’s <em>this</em>,” she pointed to another, done after Christmas, with all of them working together to assemble a gift Nadine’s sisters had received. It had been so confusing, but they’d laughed so hard. “It’s <em>this</em>, and <em>this</em>.” Here was them having movie night, there was the Babineaux family party, sitting in the shade with GiGi. “It’s <em>this</em>,” she stopped, showing the seven of them, on the front steps at school.</p><p> </p><p>“A bunch of good-looking people?” Zay asked with a smirk, chin up, and Nadine snorted.</p><p> </p><p>“One hour, people!” Riley reminded them, then, “Fifty-eight minutes actually,” she adjusted, before turning back to Maya. “Go on.”</p><p> </p><p>“The actual set up, that’s what we need to figure out right now, then I’ll start drawing after you’re gone and we’ll start working tomorrow. But that’s the… spirit I want to portray, or… offer, I guess. It’s meant to be a collaboration, so who says go, who says pass?”</p><p> </p><p>“Go,” Lucas nodded, and one after the other it was go, go, go. They had a start.</p><p> </p><p>For the next almost an hour, they worked together to create what would be their image to be reproduced. As a double to his brother, Joey Garcia offered to take pictures so they could keep track of the various choices they were gathering. It felt just silly to stand around Maya’s room that way, but they knew that, with the whole effect they would create, it would become… living art.</p><p> </p><p>Once they had found something that met their approval, as much for the image as for their ability to hold the pose for any amount of time – with three minutes to spare – the Hart house saw its guests depart at last. It was the most people they’d ever had in their house at once.</p><p> </p><p>Retreating to her window with her sketchbook, her pencils, and her phone, Maya got to work drawing the image they had chosen. It would be basic for now, but she could figure out the style, the colors… She pulled out some books she had bought with her money from the diner over the summer, books on art that she paged through for inspiration. This part at least was all on her, and she felt the motivation she got from her art as much as the high of her day, both helping her to fill the page with what she saw as a worthy representation of what it meant, to her, to them, to anyone who had ever been lucky enough to have even one friend like them.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” her mother came in to see her, leading Maya to discover it was almost midnight. “Still at it?” she asked, brushing hair from her daughter’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’m done, I think. I’ve been touching up for a while,” she admitted, rubbing at her eyes. The day was officially catching up to her. With a sigh, she closed the sketchbook, the reference books… “I’m going to bed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Let me see it again?” her mother asked, lifting her feet from the seat so she could sit with her, and setting those feet down in her lap. Maya passed her the sketchbook, reaching forward to find the page for her. “You know what this makes me think of?” She didn’t. “Topanga. When you girls were little, going to school… She was my first good friend in a long time. And those other moms, oh…” Katy shook her head. “Well, the less said the better,” she turned to give her a pointed look.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked to her mother with a sleepy smile. It was just as she had wanted it to be. Now she had to get to bed, so the next day could begin, bringing this small vision to life size.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0151"><h2>151. Their Art With Preparation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunday morning, he thought he had been up early. And then he had gotten to Maya’s house, finding not only that Riley, Zay, <em>and</em> Nadine were already there, but also that Maya herself had already been up for a couple of hours. She was hopping, almost. She told him how she had been preparing what she could before the rest of them arrived, which he could guess once he got a look at her arm. She saw him looking and she held it up for him to see.</p><p> </p><p>“Practice run,” she explained. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to make us look like a painting. Not bad, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“This is so weird,” he blinked, smiling. “Wow,” he inspected her arm. He could picture it now, with the rest of it… It was no wonder she was beaming the way she was. “So, what do you need me to do?”</p><p> </p><p>They waited until the others came along, and then they got to work. With any luck they would get enough done today so that they would be done in time for the art show. All of them were determined to play their part in this collaboration, not to end up having Maya do it all.</p><p> </p><p>They had to create the backdrop. They had to make their clothes to be part of the painting. And they had to make practice runs for all of their hair and ‘makeup.’ Maya set Asher, Dylan and Joey on backdrop duty. A large white bed sheet had been sacrificed to the cause, where Maya helped the boys get started. She set Zay, Riley, and Nadine to costume duty. And Lucas would be there to replace any one of them when their turn came to sit with Maya to get done up for their practice run.</p><p> </p><p>Before they could all start, she had shown them the piece she had completed. She had been working on the smaller, reference piece since she’d gotten up that morning. Lucas looked at her, that wide-eyed sort of expression on her face making him wonder if she had even slept at all, that shaky smile letting them know how much she hoped they liked it. He couldn’t speak for the others, but it was his favorite thing of hers he had ever seen.</p><p> </p><p>They all loved it. The moment they saw it, they all started pointing this person out, this detail and that pose… Some of them started to try and replicate how they would stand already… She had replicated those from the pictures they had taken the evening before, and it all just fit. They were one step closer to the art show, and the painting was all the motivation they needed in order to split up and get started on their assigned tasks.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had the benefit of being familiar enough with all their clothes to be able to tell each one of them which items to bring over to her house that morning. What she had lacked was the time to get the word out to all of them. So, Team Costume was quickly dispatched – with Maya’s mother driving them – to go to all their houses and get what they needed out of their rooms, vowing not to look where they didn’t need to look.</p><p> </p><p>While this was going on, Maya had shown Team Backdrop what they had to do. Out of the three, she had put Asher in charge of the finer details, knowing he would be able to do them justice, while Dylan and Joey handled the broader, simpler aspects. In no time, they were on a roll.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had been the first to be put through the practice run for hair and makeup. He was promised that everything would wash off after, if not all at once. He was made to stand in his pose, so she could paint what parts of his face, neck, arms and hands would be exposed, and she fixed his hair all the same. He spent most of this session listening as the boys crouched over the bedsheet canvas carried on with their work by singing loudly and not entirely on key. It was that or getting distracted by what was being done to him, or who it was that was doing it to him. When it was over, he went and saw the results, and he was stunned. He really looked like he belonged in that painting.</p><p> </p><p>In no time, he was sent to work on the backdrop, while Joey Garcia went and had his turn, where he would be made to look exactly like his twin in order to be able to trade places with him during the show day. He had wanted to wash off at least his hands, for fear of staining the backdrop, but they wouldn’t let him. They had to wait and show the others once they got back from chasing costumes.</p><p> </p><p>This happened about an hour after they’d left, by which point Maya had finished with Joey and started on Asher. Zay, the girls, and Maya’s mother came in, with their arms full of clothes, nearly dropping them as they saw Lucas and Joey and laughed in awe.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s teams would work all through the day, and thankfully by the time they called it a day, they had just about finished everything they could need to do before the day of the show. What remained could be dealt with by Maya and her mother, who became a sudden and vital member of their collaboration that day. Lucas went home that night, still mostly as painted as he’d been since morning, curious to see the looks on his parents’ faces. They would be at the show, too.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0152"><h2>152. Their Art With Assistance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya and her mother would work together into the evening, and if her mother had not insisted for her to head to bed to wake up in time for school the next day, they might have carried on longer. By Maya’s estimation, those bare hours could have seen everything required to be all done and packed and ready to go, but Katy wouldn’t have it, promising Maya would thank her in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>The evening was one of those Maya had come to love since they had come to Texas, evenings where she and her mother joined forces on a task in such a way that she knew the younger Maya would have felt she could have done anything to experience more often than she did, in a way that made her feel so much closer to her mother. The Maya she had grown to be here, though in many ways, in the ways that mattered deep down, was that same girl back in New York, the one who understood why she didn’t get so many of those moments as she would want. The girl she had grown into had more peace in her heart than what her younger self could have ever believed she could get… It started to feel like hope… She had been worried for a time that these changes might amount to mean she had somehow lost herself, lost who she was supposed to be. But then there’d be these moments, with her mother, with her friends, and she would know, no, she was good.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had become so very motivated to help in this project, and Maya had been more than glad to let her into it, though she had drawn some line at her wanting to coach their performance skills.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll get everything out there for you before you even get there,” her mother promised her, and again it made her think of her old self, the one who would have taken this promise with little belief that it would be held. She had grown up knowing not to jump in blind faith. But her mother said it now and Maya nodded.</p><p> </p><p>She had paused at one time, faced with a question hanging in her mind. Her mother was looking through the reference photos they had taken of everyone, while Maya was carefully packing up some of the supplies, and she had smiled, showing Maya the one she’d taken of Zay, claiming he again had so much distinguished potential as an actor; she would not soon forget.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you really did a good job on Lucas,” her mother went on, and Maya knew she’d answered something like ‘yeah,’ but then there was the pause, and there was the question, the one she asked herself, the one that wondered whether or not she wanted to bring up certain… confusions… regarding her guide and friend.</p><p> </p><p>The answer seemed clear. If she said anything, there would be no going back. It would just be something that existed, something which sought resolution, would demand it and not relent. But if it remained unspoken, unspecified, unreal… Then there was no issue, was there?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, did you hear what I said?” She blinked to her mother, shook her head. Her mother gave her a sympathetic look, nodded toward her bedroom. “Go get ready for bed, I’ll finish up here. No arguing, go,” she went on, when of course Maya meant to argue. With a sigh, she had gotten to her feet, started toward her room, then stopped and turned back.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, do you think you’ve changed a lot since we came here?” she asked. Her mother looked at her, then thought on her question for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” she started, sitting back from being crouched over the props. “It all sort of happens, doesn’t it? My work is different now, better. It makes me happy, the hours are better, not to mention the pay. I’m not nearly as stressed as I used to be, and I get to spend more time with my favorite baby girl,” she smiled that smile of hers that seemed to come only when she looked at her daughter. “I’m still me, but with… bonus,” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“And a Shawn,” Maya gave her a smirk, and her mother laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“And a Shawn,” her mother repeated with a nod. “Why do you ask?” She was getting better at that, too, the piercing mom interrogation, not harsh, just really hard to ignore.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” Maya shrugged, lied, then in truth, “Maybe sometimes I worry I’ve changed too much, like if I ever went back to New York like this I’d get eaten alive.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, you and I both know that is never going to happen,” her mother got up, and in an instant, there was that fierce woman she had always known. “We are still a couple of Harts, Maya, and in New York or Texas, we don’t get bit, we do the biting.” Maya had to laugh, but she also just smiled. “Any other questions?” her mother asked.</p><p> </p><p>She could say it. Right here, right now, bring her unreal thing into reality, give it shape and color, life… But maybe she wasn’t ready to submit this much to her mother’s scrutiny, or anyone else’s, not Riley, no one.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think that’ll do it.” Her mother had come and placed a kiss on her forehead, wished her good night, and she’d gotten back to work.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0153"><h2>153. Their Art With Contact</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The week had gone by faster than expected. Suddenly the day had come for them to bring it all together and unveil their collaboration to the world… or at least the people who would come and see. They’d done a couple of practices, both with and without their costumes, testing out how they would fare with taking their positions and holding them. Maya’s mother had contributed here by pretending to be someone who came to take a look, talking as she watched, to help them not break.</p><p> </p><p>Now they were all there, the material delivered as promised, Maya working to paint each of them in turn. The rest of the display was assembled as she did this. Lucas’ turn came and, when he lowered himself on to the stool that she’d placed in front of hers, he fixed her with a sort of open smile that declared he was hers to paint up as she pleased.</p><p> </p><p>“Relax your face,” she chuckled, reaching halfway to force the smile off his face before he backed away and nudged her hands away playfully. “Come on, we have to get ready, and I still have to do mine. Sit still and let me do my thing, same as before. If you don’t, I <em>will</em> have to get all… persuasive.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d like to see how that goes,” he laughed, before retracting at the look that came to her face and challenged his claim. “Or not,” he surrendered, sitting up straight, face relaxed.</p><p> </p><p>He always flinched at the start, when she first held his face, the first touch of her brush… and he would start to look off to the side, never right back at her. She guessed that was just as well or it might have made things even stranger, him staring at her when they were sitting close like that. It was already sort of strange, for reasons she couldn’t put into words, holding, touching his face like this. They’d had contact before, sure. A hand was held – briefly – here, a hug there, but all of a sudden, they had gone to a whole other level, and if she didn’t focus…</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not itchy this time, are you? Because if you are then you better take care of it now,” she told him. At their last practice run, he’d messed up part of his face when he’d scratched his cheek.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I wasn’t…” he frowned, earning himself a batting at the hand that reached up, probably, to scratch at his face. “I’m sure it’ll pass.” After a moment, as she continued painting him, he looked back at her, and she hesitated. “Are you nervous about today?” She stopped, looking at him, too.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she scoffed, never believing in any way that he would be fooled by this but never correcting, then, “You?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not nervous,” he told her, “I just want everything to go okay, I know you’ve worked hard.”</p><p> </p><p>“We all did. It’s a collaboration, remember?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but you did most of the work,” he explained. “You’re doing this for art. And all of us are doing it for you.” She stared back at him in silence for a moment or two more, then got back to painting.</p><p> </p><p>Holding the side of his face that wouldn’t be painted, cradled almost, in her free hand while she painted, she was noticing too many things that did not have the slightest thing to do with her task. Warmth and texture, colors and scents… She was in art mode, it just couldn’t be helped, could it? It was all in the details, even when he was more the canvas than the subject.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she finally spoke, and he turned his eyes if not his face. “If you keep moving, I’m going to mess this up,” she blinked, looking back to her reference and her paints.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry,” he said, as she felt his face resettle in her palm. If she moved it at all she was afraid it would seem like she was stroking his face. “And you’re welcome.”</p><p> </p><p>As difficult as it came to feel, they had gotten through the rest of Lucas’ preparation in silence and without issue. It was a relief. All had gone so well before, so how it could turn into a mess, today of all days…</p><p> </p><p>When he was ready, he got up and she moved to go and get herself ready, too. Lucas came to stand nearby, she realized, as she painted at her arm. She looked at him when she knew he was there, asking in silence what she wondered in her head. “What do you want?”</p><p> </p><p>“Need a hand?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m alright,” she promised. She didn’t know when they had slipped into this strange sort of rapport, but she would have given anything to go on and make jokes again, casual as ever, just unafraid, determined. The show was going to start soon. If not for these nerves… “Painting my hand into a hand with my other hand… Another one would be too many, no?” Then, “Thanks for the offer. Can you check if the others are ready?” she asked, as though she couldn’t already hear Riley calling to rally the others. Lucas nodded and went as asked.</p><p> </p><p>Maya sighed. Well, she hadn’t started on her face yet, she could still thump her head on a table, or a wall… She wouldn’t… She could, but she wouldn’t. She was being ridiculous, she knew. She sat up again, continuing her painting, even as she could still feel Lucas’ face in her hand as though it continued to sit there, warm and clean.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0154"><h2>154. Their Art With a Show</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had spent three hours overall standing in his position. Every half hour they would alternate, half of them in place, half taking those minutes to sit and relax after standing without moving. Maya had instated an exercise of sneaking out of the building unseen and making a run around the building, four of them together. It had to be an interesting sight to people coming and going to the exhibition, seeing a bunch of painted boys and girls running around.</p><p> </p><p>Every so often they would be in position a whole hour, to make it so that a different combination stood against the backdrop together. After those, Maya would make two whole circuits of the building, running, hopping and skipping, arms flexing… It was hard not to look at. Lucas had seen all those runs, every last one. Lucas had spent three hours in position, three hours with his face turned just so, and his view in all this was of Maya Hart. In all the switches, he had not once been in place without her. He stood turned toward her, and she had <em>her</em> face turned up towards the sky… or the ceiling, beyond that backdrop. He didn’t know if that was her intention, but there they were.</p><p> </p><p>Before the start of the day, they had put everything in place, including a curtain of sorts, the better to keep their life size painting hidden in the midst of a lineup change, but this would not happen just yet. For the first half hour, it would be him, Maya, Zay, Nadine, Asher, Dylan, and Riley, with Joey Garcia working the curtain.</p><p> </p><p>The energy had been surging as they all stood back there, waiting to get started. It wouldn’t be the same as their practices with Maya’s mother, there would be so many more people standing, moving, talking, and they could hear them then, coming into the room. So, they took their places, and finally the curtain had been pulled back.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas didn’t know that they ever had any less than two or three always there, watching them, often more. Most of them looked appropriately taken with what they had done, all of them together. They would point, nod, and they would talk in hushed tones, in something that felt like respect bestowed on to them for the thing they were attempting to do. A handful through the day were more of a mind to try and make them break character, making loud noises, or talking to them… classmates. Unluckily for those, they never lasted long, having to deal with any one of Lucas and the others’ family members in attendance that day.</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t break, not one of them, although there had been a few close calls, the passing itch, a need to go to the bathroom, or an unpleasant cramping… The moment they would see the curtain roll in for a swap, it was like a switch flipped.</p><p> </p><p>They had made it to the end, finishing with a complete set, just as they’d started, until the final curtain. They had maintained the ‘character’ to the very end. But when it was over, it was celebrated in hugs, in a giddiness that didn’t seem possible after all that they had done that day.</p><p> </p><p>Just like that, they were washing up, packing up, getting ready to head home. Lucas had told the others to go on ahead home; he would stay to help Maya and her mother. But then Riley was already there, along with her parents, to do just that, and so he’d bowed out and gone home with his parents. There was something they couldn’t miss, seeing those two families together. They had a history, just short of impenetrable.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting in the back of his father’s car as they rolled off, the exhaustion of the day seemed to hit him out of nowhere. He was awake, but it felt like he was somewhere else, floating just outside his tired self. And from up here, the memory that came and grabbed hold of his thoughts was one several hours old and still near enough that it could have been seconds. He remembered the way she’d held on to his face as she’d painted it.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered he had felt no need or wish to move, not as he had adjusted to that touch, remembered he had started at first, just for a moment, like if he got a shock, or if he’d been pinched in the middle of a dream only to find it was waking life and absolutely real.</p><p> </p><p>It was the third time she’d painted his face like that, and he didn’t know what had been so different either this time or the other times, only today he had been taken with just… something else. Today, he had noticed a sense of care in the way her hand supported his face, in how her palm and her fingers, small as they were, felt concentrated on this one task with so much… so much… In all the ways someone might have done this, <em>she</em> had done it in such a way that would continue to alight itself in his mind for days and weeks and months and years.</p><p> </p><p>He could count himself lucky that at this moment as he recalled all of this, his mother was too busy talking about him, at him but more at herself, to notice he wasn’t paying attention. He was stuck in his floating headspace with an unending loop of one of his best friends holding his face in her hand, and he wouldn’t have known if anyone tried to hand him a million dollars, he was so far away. It stayed with him so much, he could have believed her hand was still there, cradling his cheek.</p><p> </p><p>They’d reached home, and with little to say, he’d said good night to his parents before going up to shower and wash off the rest of the paint. Before long, he was clean and feeling the call of sleep. He sat on the edge of his bed, and as he did so, he could see his desk across the room, and above it in prominence the drawing Maya had given him several months ago. First meeting.</p><p> </p><p>The phantom palm was back at his cheek, and he almost had to shake it off. Why though? It didn’t mean anything; it was only a memory. He’d spent three hours holding one position, he could still feel <em>that</em> in his limbs, too, and he could remember all that he saw, too. He would go to sleep, rest up, and the phantoms would dissipate.</p><p> </p><p>He rubbed at his face, trying to clear his head before getting into bed. They’d done good that day. In all that he had seen and heard, he could claim in all confidence that theirs had been the most popular piece on display, and that all came down to Maya, to her idea and its execution, to which they had made their minimal contribution, really. She had come up with the living art aspect, and with the piece itself, capturing the lot of them in as natural a way that the hours had felt about as easy as they ever could. All that, it had been her. All they’d done was show up, do as she said and let themselves get painted.</p><p> </p><p>And there was the phantom again, always.</p><p> </p><p>He turned over in his bed, as though it would make sleep come faster that way. Maybe it would, hopefully, although who knew what his dreams would make of this day. He would have thought he would have fallen right to sleep, but not so.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever strange thoughts were running through his mind, they would leave with the day, he believed, and in some ways they did, although whether they were just gone or pushed out of his immediate consciousness was not for him to understand, not at that time.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they would all see each other again, at school, the topic would already have moved on to their plans for Halloween, which was now just around the corner. Costume ideas were starting to be tossed around, while Riley put in that she had promised to take her little brother trick-or-treating, along with his friend from school. Soon Nadine had put in herself and her sisters for this excursion, and then it was all of them who would be accompanying Auggie Matthews on his first Halloween in Austin, one project put behind them and another started.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0155"><h2>155. Her Bonds of Friendship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Halloween had come and gone, and of all those she knew, Maya was surprised to declare the one most affected by it was not one of her friends. Asher’s uncle, he of the diner, had a bad fall, putting him out of commission for a couple of weeks. This was how Maya, Asher, and Nadine had found themselves temporarily back on the pay roll at the diner. And like over the summer, it had turned the place into their de facto point of hangout, now of course with Riley along for the ride.</p><p> </p><p>On that Saturday morning, the three of them on the clock were moving about from customer to customer, while Lucas, Zay, Dylan, and Riley sat side by side at the counter. Those first two were taking any opportunity they could find to talk with the working trio, while also testing boundaries to see what they might be able to receive, either by their own hand or as hand outs, while the other two seemed much more taken with a construction made out of sugar packets. Dylan had something of a budding architect in him, and he instructed Riley in the castle’s layout as they raised its granulated walls.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did you even get all those?” asked Nadine, as exasperated as she was fascinated. She got only shrugs from the builders, while their respective best friends shared a look of conspiracy before getting back to work. Maya would wait before delivering the next load she carried in her apron’s pockets.</p><p> </p><p>They would be done here before long, and then it was off to the boys’ basketball team’s game. What would happen to the poor little castle was anybody’s guess, though Maya did not see herself being above preserving it somehow. Dylan and Riley would probably not mind. They’d done this before, and they would do it again.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, someone’s calling for you,” Asher appeared at her side, pointing to the diner’s old phone, the receiver sitting on the counter with its long cord dangling. She looked around, as though it couldn’t be anyone, when all her friends were here, and if it was her mother then he wouldn’t call her ‘someone.’</p><p> </p><p>“Hello?” she answered when she’d gone to pick up the phone. “This is Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>“You guys do any pick-up orders?” a man’s voice asked and she chuckled at once. “How you doing, kid?”</p><p> </p><p>She had been waiting to hear when Shawn might finally be making the trip down to Austin just as he’d been supposed to, bringing the Matthews’ leftover belongings over from New York. Every time they’d talked or written, all he’d say was ‘in November, probably.’ Well it was November now, had been for a couple weeks, which had turned his answer into ‘soon, probably.’ She knew the drive down was long, she’d done it herself, so she understood, mostly. But she was eager for the visit.</p><p> </p><p>“Your mom told me I’d be able to reach you over there,” Shawn went on, and Maya swore – as she always did – that his voice changed when he brought up her mother. She had been privy to the same effect when her mother talked about him. “I won’t keep you long, I just wanted to make sure you knew I hadn’t forgotten to call like I promised.” Even unseen, she knew there’d be that look in his eyes, the one that said he never intended to make promises without keeping them.</p><p> </p><p>“Well thanks, I mean, in person would be better, but…” she trailed off, nodding to herself when the response came: soon.</p><p> </p><p>After they’d hung up, she’d trailed the length of the counter until she stood across from her friends, leaning on the surface with a barely contained sigh, pushing a sugar packet back and forth with the tip of her finger.</p><p> </p><p>“Miss, can we get a refill?” She looked back to Zay as he spoke. He smiled, holding up the two empty cups. She frowned. “We’ll pay,” he insisted, so she took the cups and moved to fill them. “So, who was that?”</p><p> </p><p>“A friend,” she said and, at the surprised look on his face, “What, I’ve got others.” The cups delivered, she went around the diner to see to her customers. It wasn’t as though she didn’t want them knowing about anything, only sometimes when it came to Shawn and his place in her life – whatever it may be – she sort of wanted to keep it to herself, her own thing, safe where it couldn’t be touched or knocked down, like so many sugar packets.</p><p> </p><p>The castle had fallen victim to an errant elbow, and facing the mess of packets now completely unrecognizable as any form of structure, the builders were forced to resign themselves to defeat, slowly working to pick up and organize the small envelopes. Maya soon joined in on the task, along with Lucas and Zay. She became so focused on this that she never heard the bell at the door, or see the man who walked in, until he dropped into the empty stool at Riley’s side and both she and Maya turned to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Uncle Shawn, you’re here!” Riley beamed, reaching to embrace him in greeting. He returned the gesture while Maya moved around the counter to join them, and then he moved to embrace her, too.</p><p> </p><p>“I did say ‘soon,’ didn’t I?” he frowned, amused.</p><p> </p><p>“You did say that, yeah,” Maya confirmed. Outside the window she could see a rental van which she guessed was his. Her mystery friend now revealed, she brought him to take a seat with them, where she would get him anything, on the house, much to Zay’s protest.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0156"><h2>156. Her Bonds of Discovery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Maya brought the plate to Shawn, she found him in deep conversation with Riley, which was to say that Riley spoke on and on and Shawn listened, managed to get a word in now and then. He knew, like Maya knew, that she was happy to see him of course, the one who had come along in her friendless loneliness… and maybe she was very much her father’s daughter. Meanwhile, Dylan had continued gathering up the sugar packets, while Lucas and Zay…</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong with you guys?” she gave them a baffled frown. They looked up at her, uncharacteristically quiet and evasive, shrugged, but in the next moment she rolled her eyes. She had not believed they would still be carrying the ‘fear’ put in them by Shawn’s stern-father-at-the-door look over the summer. “Seriously?” she reached out, clicking her fingers in their faces and moving back to stand across from Shawn. “Did you have a good drive?”</p><p> </p><p>“Long drive… A lot of sights, sites… Took some pictures, want to see?” he asked, pulling the camera – as yet unseen – from his lap and handing it to her.</p><p> </p><p>“A bit anxious to share there, Shawn?” she smirked, taking the camera and clicking through the images last captured. She saw a few things she remembered from her own drive up from New York the year before, some she had herself recreated in drawings. “Driving back, too?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, want to come with?” he offered plainly. She could have felt envious of the possibility, New York handed to her on a plate, though she knew it <em>wasn’t</em> a possibility, as much as he’d know. She wasn’t going to let herself feel sad about that.</p><p> </p><p>“Gee, I wish I could, but you know, school, basketball, all that… Maybe next time?”</p><p> </p><p>“Next time,” he kept her eyes as he nodded; he kept his promises, she knew that. He would take her there someday, and she smiled. “You two coming along?” he then asked, nodding to the truck waiting outside the diner as he looked to both Riley and Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I still need to finish here,” Maya told him. “And then,” she indicated the guys.</p><p> </p><p>“You can miss one game,” Lucas assured her, without her needing to elaborate.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll tell you all about how we beat those guys later,” Zay added with regained confidence, Lucas agreeing to this with a nod. Maya was amused to see how they had broken out of their awkwardness into confidence, only to snap back the moment Shawn got up from his seat; it was never not going to be funny to her now.</p><p> </p><p>“Be right back,” Shawn told them, moving behind the boys and toward the bathrooms, and Maya swore she saw <em>him</em> smirk about the two of them, too. Maya waited until he’d gone before facing them.</p><p> </p><p>Zay was generally this way, she felt. He would react this way because he sensed he had to, and no more motive needed. And Lucas… It struck her, after a beat, that <em>he</em> would feel in any way in the crosshairs as he had done the day when she’d introduced him and Zay to Shawn. What did he even have to freak out over?</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to be okay to play, Loopy?” she waved her hand in his face. He frowned at the nickname, as though he had no idea what she meant, as though she would buy that. “If you lose, it’s going to be so awkward when <em>we</em> win,” she shrugged innocently, and his confidence resurged.</p><p> </p><p>“Well then we’re gonna have to win, won’t we?” he matched her expression and she grinned, nodding. “You know, you guys should go on ahead, I can finish your shift.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, don’t worry about it, you guys have a game soon…”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll make sure you get really good tips. Give a little… smile and a howdy,” he put that smile on display, and she worked overtime to reel in a burst of laughter. Now he was just doing it on purpose, wasn’t he? “Come on, go with them. I know you’ve been waiting for him to visit for weeks.” Well she had, that was true, and of course he had remembered. <em>Smile and a howdy…</em></p><p> </p><p>“Alright, fine,” she came out from behind the counter while he got up and went the other way, until they stood facing each other again. “I’ll owe you one, I guess… That’ll be something…”</p><p> </p><p>“A favor from Maya Hart,” he pondered. “I’m not sure what I could use it for yet, but I’ll probably think of something.”</p><p> </p><p>When Shawn returned, Maya revealed she was all set to go now. Riley was ready as well, so with a quick wish of luck to the boys, and an apology to Nadine for leaving her alone to hold together their usual cheering section, the trio headed out to the truck.</p><p> </p><p>“Does my dad know you’re here yet?” Riley asked.</p><p> </p><p>“If he did his ‘Shawny’ senses would be tingly,” Maya chuckled. “Oh, now I can’t wait to see that look on his face. Riley, go!” Maya pointed at her best friend, who promptly recreated ‘the face.’ “Yeah, there it is.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0157"><h2>157. Her Bonds of History</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the near full year since she’d first met and gotten to know Shawn Hunter, the one thing she had gotten to learn, about his childhood and the time between then and now, was the might of his bond with one curly-headed teacher of hers, Cory Matthews. Before he’d been this, and even before he had been father to her own best friend, he had been to Shawn, as far as she’d been repeatedly told, what Riley was to her. It seemed impossible to imagine those two guys as kids her own age.</p><p> </p><p>For as long as she’d been hearing about all this, she had not been in the position to see this friendship expressed in the real world. Today would be the day where it changed. They were packed into the truck, Riley sandwiched between Shawn and her, and they were now pulling up to the house. Maya just happened to look at the window in time to see a figure disappear, sending the curtains aflutter. It had <em>not</em> been a short Auggie-sized flutter.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh boy…” she smirked, just before the Matthews’ front door opened, and her teacher appeared on the step.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, there’s my cue,” Shawn opened the driver’s side door and hopped out to go and meet with his approaching friend. Maya watched them, smiling, just as Riley put her arms around her, making her smile even more at having her own best friend there with her as they looked on.</p><p> </p><p>The girls eventually jumped out of the truck, too, maybe so their… well, Riley’s father and Maya’s… Shawn… would stop hugging. This only helped so much, as conversation took hold, Cory wanting to know about Shawn’s journey on the road. When Topanga came out of the house along with Auggie and offered to help the girls start to unload the truck, they guessed she’d reached the same conclusion, which was that if they didn’t start now, they would be there for hours.</p><p> </p><p>It was ten minutes of them moving back and forth with boxes before Maya decided to turn motivation on to the two chatting men in the form of a fairly retired look in her eyes as she walked past them. Even though she had felt no need or desire to use it in a year and some, it did its work like always, and the next thing they knew, they had two more sets of hands to help them take the items from the truck and bring them to where they belonged inside the house.</p><p> </p><p>Maya could sort of see it now, the way they were with each other. She knew very well what it was like to be separated from <em>that</em> person in your life, and when her and Riley had been reunited, she had felt that frenzy so well. Shawn and Mr. Matthews… She didn’t always feel at ease calling him Cory… They didn’t have the exact same history as she and Riley did, but it was similar enough that she could look at them and go ‘oh, of course, I know.’</p><p> </p><p>Once those two had jumped in to assist, the unloading had sped up, and in time they were done. Riley was excited to find the things she’d left behind again, opening one box and then another like Christmas had come more than a month early. Maya tried to help her unpack but just as quickly saw that this was very much her task, that <em>she</em> wanted to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Moving back downstairs, she found Shawn, who told her that he would be having dinner here that evening. He asked whether she and her mother might want to join in. ‘There it is,’ Maya thought, stepping toward him with a curious look on her face.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re just in the habit of inviting people to other people’s homes for dinner?” she asked. He shrugged – of course he could, in this house. “Well, we can’t, we have plans,” she revealed. “Although, right now, I was supposed to be at a game, which didn’t happen, and Riley apparently doesn’t need me, so I guess I should head home to my mother,” she went on, watching his face as she spoke. He must have thought he gave absolutely nothing away, but he wasn’t fooling her at all.</p><p> </p><p>The Matthews hadn’t known he was coming any more than Maya or Riley had, which would make it even more likely that Katy Hart didn’t know either. He’d been holding all the cards, only now so did she… some of his, but some of her own, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell you what, why don’t I drive you,” he offered after a moment. When she thanked him and said she could just take the bus, leaving him to spend more time with his BFF, he gave her a look and insisted that it was really no trouble at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Well alright then, you’re on.”</p><p> </p><p>They couldn’t leave without telling the others. Maya was amused again, seeing that although Mr. Matthews had calmed down considerably, he still had something about him she recognized as that sort of boost she had gotten for being returned Riley. That first night, when they’d returned home after dinner, her hand had been a blur, it felt, drawing with so much inspiration that she didn’t feel tired at all, even once she’d finally gone to bed.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, they headed out, getting into the now empty truck before Topanga ran out to hand Shawn her car keys. They left the truck there, and they took off for Maya’s house.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0158"><h2>158. Her Bonds of Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the third time now that she was visited by Shawn Hunter. The first, last Christmas, had been all of a few hours, the second had drawn over two weeks in the summer, so it could be said she had seen him many more than three times, especially if they came to account the now countless calls and messages. But those didn’t count to her as seeing, and the summer weeks were one thing, really, and so this was the third time she got to see him. And maybe it was that near on half a year would go by between those moments, but she would look at him now, think to herself that he’d always felt different to her, from one visit to the next.</p><p> </p><p>In great part this was with regards to what he meant to her, whether she felt brave enough to say it or not, but it also had to do with him as a person. Did <em>he</em> feel those same changes, too, every time he saw her? Every time he saw her mother? Did he look at her, Maya, and notice she’d grown a little? Did he feel any different toward her? Did he look at her mother and feel… more? Did he look at the both of them and think about something, about anything at all?</p><p> </p><p>“Starting to know a lot of people here in Austin, yeah?” she found herself casually asking, not looking at him, more out at the streets rolling by. He agreed. “So, you’ll be making these trips back and forth more now?” she went on, hoping not to sound like she was fishing for anything, even if her next question was “Do you like it here?”</p><p> </p><p>She turned to look at him, she had to, or she would give herself away. He had the benefit of having to look at the road as he drove, but she could still sense that her words were working through his mind. The subject continued to be this thing they both knew existed, both knew the other was aware of, but could not name. So, they would take chancing blows at it and see what came loose in the process.</p><p> </p><p>“Well what’s not to like?” was the answer that eventually came, in a tone that could only be described as encouraging. “I guess I’m lucky my job means I get to go off on trips like this now and then,” he added, and when he gave her a look, he would find her smiling. She had his camera in her lap even now. He never left it behind. “Texas, that’s a big state, I bet I could do a whole series on it.”</p><p> </p><p>“You should, definitely. I’d love to see it, it <em>is</em> my home now, our home, me and my mom.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then I’ll look into it,” he told her, and a calm silence settled in again. As afraid as she was that everything might suddenly turn and go wrong, that it would leave her, little by little or all at once, she found it easier now, just a little, to take a breath, take a chance, to not be so afraid of the future and what she wanted in it. It was new, and a little terrifying, and she still had to learn a lot, but she’d made it this far already.</p><p> </p><p>For a while, the silence continued, and Maya found that she liked this, riding along with Shawn… The distance between Riley’s house and her own was really not that large, which she’d always been thankful for, right up until now, when a small part of her had decided she might like it to go on a little longer.</p><p> </p><p>“So, when’s your next game, tomorrow?” he asked, and she turned to him, just catching that he’d talked to her. She confirmed that it was. With his arrival it had almost slipped her mind. “Good, can’t wait to see you out there, in person.” She blinked, first because of his announcing that he would come to see her play, then because of what he’d said on the end.</p><p> </p><p>“In person?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I’ve seen videos,” he shrugged, as though he assumed that she’d known. She was just asking herself where he would have gotten those from, but then she would see Mr. Matthews out in the stands, cheering along, camera in hand. Shawn had seen her play… It made some of their conversations in recent weeks make much more sense all of a sudden. And it made <em>her</em> a little nervous, too, like she would suddenly choke out there and lose in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not that big of a difference,” she tried to play it off.</p><p> </p><p>“No, are you kidding? Maya, I’ll be there, okay? Look, you didn’t even see my shirt yet,” he said, just as they stopped outside her house. He turned toward her, pulling his jacket open for her to find he wore a shirt in her school’s colors, with a bright number 48 in the middle, something she recognized as Riley’s handiwork. It made her laugh. Maybe if she saw that when she was out on the court, she wouldn’t feel so nervous after all.</p><p> </p><p>“Looks good on you,” she nodded. “Kind of ridiculous, but good.”</p><p> </p><p>“Please, I grew up in the nineties, this is nothing,” he pointed at his shirt. She couldn’t stop beaming. She held up her hand and he returned the high five instantly. They got out of the car and started out toward the house. “How’s the crowd at those games?”</p><p> </p><p>“Depends where you’re sitting, I guess. If you’ve been hearing the games from Mr. Matthews’ recording, it will have sounded louder than it actually is, with Riley and the guys right there,” she guessed. They got up to the door, where she could already see her mother through the windowpanes.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0159"><h2>159. Her Bonds of Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At this time, she would still have been out at the boys’ game, so when Maya opened the door, surprising her mother, Katy jumped, quickly turning in a potentially defensive stance until she saw her daughter standing there, just inside the house.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you scared me,” she breathed, hand to her heart, then as she had a moment to think. “Wait, what are you doing home, weren’t you at the game?”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t go,” Maya told her. “Riley didn’t either. Something came up… well, someone,” she added with a smirk before stepping in to let their visitor follow. She looked to her mother’s face and his in turn. Her mother was surprised once more, pleasantly this time. Shawn had a smile of his own, almost shy. Maya didn’t ever see that one on him unless he’d be looking at her mother; she didn’t dislike it.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn,” her mother greeted him, moving toward the pair of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Katy,” he tipped his head. “I just figured I’d get Maya home after she helped unload the truck at Cory’s,” he explained, and Maya could have given him a look, pointing out she saw right through his excuse, but she decided to let him have this one. Later though, oh she’d let him know how silly he’d been.</p><p> </p><p>“Right, yeah, I was wondering when you’d be coming down for that,” her mother replied, equally obvious. Maya had to look at her feet so not to just put the two of them out of their misery. She doubted they would even notice.</p><p> </p><p>Once upon a time, she would have done anything to prevent this, would have seen the ruin before the blast, whether there would have been a blast at all or not. Even months ago, she had still been so doubtful, so apprehensive though a part of her would whisper to give hope a chance. Now… now she didn’t know, now… she thought she might actually have thrown in for real. Was this what it felt like, to throw caution to the wind, to trust that there was as much of a chance that all would land safely as she might fall, enough that it was worth the risk?</p><p> </p><p>If she had any concerns that the span of months since Shawn’s last physical visit might have changed anything, might have seen either of them take a step back, she only had to look at them now to know how wrong she would have been. They still talked, still relied on each other, just as Maya did, in their own way of course, not like hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn is having dinner at Riley’s tonight, I told him how we were busy tonight so we couldn’t go. But he’ll be at my game tomorrow,” Maya informed her mother, who looked like she’d forgotten about their plans for a moment and was sorry to be reminded. “But it won’t be dinner for a while, right? So, he can stick around until then, can’t you, Shawn?” He had opened his mouth to respond, just as her mother asked him if he’d had lunch yet. He attempted to speak, again. “No, he hasn’t,” Maya cut him off, shaking her head. He looked at her; he <em>had</em> eaten, at the diner. “Unloading is hungry work, isn’t it, even <em>if</em> you spent part of that time just… chatting with ‘Cor.’” Shawn nodded to himself before turning to Katy.</p><p> </p><p>“Lunch sounds good. Now you,” he turned back to Maya, why don’t you show me what you’ve been working on lately.”</p><p> </p><p>A pizza had been ordered, and as they waited, Maya had taken Shawn to her room, showing him what she’d been doing, but mostly focusing on the live art project they’d done, her and her friends. She showed him the article that had been written on the exhibition, which had singled out her group’s piece, including a picture of the seven of them in all their painted glory, holding their poses. It was the first time her name had been in a newspaper, and she had been so thrilled to find it. She could honestly say she would have been just as proud, article or no, but it <em>was</em> there, and she would cherish it; the clipping was stuck to her wall, along with the original painting.</p><p> </p><p>“So how long before I have my own Maya Hart original?” he asked, indicating the painting.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, say the word, and I’ll get right on it. Of course, that means you’ll either have to stick around a few more days or come back and get it when it’s done…”</p><p> </p><p>“You like messing with me, don’t you?” Shawn laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s so easy,” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, one way or the other, I want that painting. You got canvas?” She shook her head. “I’ll get you one.” She held up two, then three fingers. “A few,” he corrected. “That’s me, supporting the arts.”</p><p> </p><p>“The arts thank you,” Maya pressed an earnest hand to her heart. “So, any preferences on the subject?” He was leaving that up to her. “Yeah… then I’ll definitely need you to come back. Is that going to be okay with you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… yeah… I’m sure I can work that out in my schedule somewhere. I have that Texas series thing,” he reminded her, and she concurred. “I’ll get you those canvases by tomorrow. Anything else you need?” Maya shook her head. As thankful as she was for his kindness, and as willing as she was to use it, she didn’t want to feel as though she abused it. But she knew he enjoyed treating her every so often, so she let him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0160"><h2>160. Her Bonds of Hope</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pizza soon arrived, and if Shawn was in any way indulging by eating it, he didn’t show. They sat, the three of them around the table, Maya once again finding herself with her mother on one side and Shawn on the other, leaving her to play casual observer to… whatever was going on here.</p><p> </p><p>It took her a few minutes to really pin it down, but Shawn was being a little strange all of a sudden. Not bad, not detached, but sort of… awkward? The more it went, he was starting to look sort of clumsy, dropping things, knocking things over… Maya guessed his mind was just somewhere else right then, even though he carried on the conversation with her mother and her all the same.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t say exactly what this internal conversation would sound like, not by a mile. She’d been getting to know him, and he had shared some things about his past, maybe to help her get more comfortable with doing it, too, but that only went so far. As far as his romantic history, she didn’t think she would have known a single thing if Mr. Matthews hadn’t dropped the name Angela in her lap. He didn’t look like he’d meant to, but then what did he expect her to do about it?</p><p> </p><p>She had asked Shawn once, in a call. She had sensed hesitation on his part, but in the end he <em>had</em> told her about this old girlfriend of his. The way he spoke about her, she could tell this was someone he’d cared deeply for, loved, and would not soon relinquish completely to the past. He said he hadn’t seen her in a while, but then Maya would wonder what would happen if he <em>did</em> see her again, if suddenly the faraway Harts in Texas would come to seem too far away to keep on travelling to visit.</p><p> </p><p>But then here he was now, and she didn’t see someone hooked on a memory, or she didn’t think that she did. She was still so young, what did she know, right? Still, she was self-assured in his not being distracted that way, so there had to be something else on his mind. What did she know, what could there be?</p><p> </p><p>He was here, he’d driven a truck across the country to bring his friends’ possessions to them. That was something he could do, and she knew, having been his reason to make that journey once before – twice, if they ignored his so-called assignment over the summer. He had a career that made it possible for him to do this, and he had no one out there either…</p><p> </p><p>He was on his own. No family. Not like they did, her mother and her… Last summer, they’d had that talk, outside her mother’s theater. She was not going to forget it. He was a part of her life and intended to be. But maybe the further things went, he started to think that it couldn’t remain so undefined as it was, maybe he was afraid of that, or he wasn’t ready, or he just didn’t know how…</p><p> </p><p>“Did you know Shawn saw my games?” Maya turned to her mother, finding a pause where she could wedge herself in. She turned to Shawn, who looked on uncertainly, turned back to her mother, who received this information with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I didn’t know, but that explains a few things,” she declared, to which Maya threw in that she had said the same. “Why didn’t you say?” her mother asked Shawn, and Maya might have been afraid she’d caused him to back away instead of coming forward as she’d intended. But then her mother looked at him with that smile, and when he shrugged, she thought she saw him get some of his control back.</p><p> </p><p>“Cory started sending them to me, I didn’t ask him, but of course he knew I’d want to see those, that’s Cory Matthews for you. He just sends them, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask if I’ve watched anything. So I’ve been watching them on my own, waiting until I’d be here again so I could tell you all about it,” he finished this toward Maya, who would have found it difficult to keep from smiling. She seemed just as incapable of finding herself sitting around a table with the two of them and not feeling like nothing in the world could ever be wrong.</p><p> </p><p>For now, at least, whatever had kept Shawn distracted seemed to have gone away. Suddenly, he and her mother were discussing her past games, recalling one moment and then another, collectively arguing calls that had been made which they had both believed unfair at the time. Maya might have found this to be one of the most wonderful things she’d ever seen.</p><p> </p><p>As this was going on, she’d been getting messages from Nadine, a flurry of capped letters telling her the epic of what might have been some thrilling and crushing victory on their boys’ part, one for the ages, which she and Riley had missed out on.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother and Shawn were in complete agreement about an incident from her game two weeks ago, talking over each other, gesticulating. She wasn’t even sorry she’d missed the game; <em>this</em> was the big show.</p><p> </p><p>She texted Nadine back, promising they would all celebrate the boys’ victory after their own game the next day. She couldn’t wait to hear the whole story, and how some of them would try and make it even crazier than it had been.</p><p> </p><p>Lunch had ended, the pizza good and gone. Maya looked at Shawn, at her mother. He would be headed back to Riley’s soon and, in that moment, she felt that something had to be done, couldn’t be put off. So, she told her mother they’d be right back, and she took Shawn back to her room, to the bay window; it always worked for Riley.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0161"><h2>161. Her Bonds of Bravery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d shut the door, on second thought. It was better to keep this conversation between them – for now. She went back to sit next to Shawn, who remained baffled as to what this was all about. If that was the case, then the next bit would knock him good. She looked him square in the eye and said it.</p><p> </p><p>“Ask her out.”</p><p> </p><p>She could have smacked him in the face, and he would have had the same reaction, the words failing him, save for a confused ‘Maya?’</p><p> </p><p>“Ask her out,” she repeated. “You want to, don’t you?” He looked at her, still failing to carry on, so she forged ahead. “You and me, we’re alike, we’ve always said so, right? Do you have any idea how much it took for me to get here, to be able to say that to you or anyone?” He said nothing, but he nodded. He knew, of course he did. So, she could continue. “Is any part of that going to be because of what it would mean for me? You know it will. But that’s not my top reason. I’ve got two of those: you and her.</p><p> </p><p>“Ever since my father left, it’s been me and her. I couldn’t see her side of that, not for a while, I mean I was just a kid. I didn’t see that… She was all I had, but <em>I</em> was all <em>she</em> had, too, all she was going to let herself have. She took care of me, everything she did was to take care of me. No one else got to see how amazing she was… sometimes not even me. But you do, don’t you?” He looked at her, and his eyes told her he did. “Tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother’s more than amazing, Maya, she’s…” He looked at her walls, her drawings, paintings. “You drew all those, I take pictures… Other people, they’ll look at those, they’ll see something nice, sure, but you and me we see something else. We capture… what words can’t. Katy, she’s like that. She’s beyond words.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya had not expected so much out of him; she could see even he had not expected that he would say it so clearly, that it was there to be said at all. He breathed out; she chuckled, then she found her way back to the point she’d been making.</p><p> </p><p>“She deserves to have more people who know how good she is to be there to tell her. And you do, too, Shawn Hunter. I’m pretty sure she has some… strong opinions about you, too. Only she doesn’t ‘capture.’ She’s an actress. She’s all about the words,” she smiled as she spoke.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe she gave you some of that, too… You sure you’re only fourteen?” She shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying…” They were quiet for a moment. “Maya, I don’t live out here. If I start something with her, me out there and her over here…”</p><p> </p><p>“Long-distance relationships, bad stuff… so I’ve heard. But what about right now? You haven’t seen her so much, but you’ve been talking all this time, so…”</p><p> </p><p>“Because we’re friends. This would be different, and it would only go so long before the distance <em>would</em> become a problem.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good, let it,” she nodded. “Shouldn’t it be a problem? Being apart? If she means so much to you, if she means <em>enough</em> to you, then sooner or later, then… Right? Isn’t she going to be that?” She couldn’t let herself get carried away, but she’d started this now, and she had to finish it. “I’m not asking you if you love her, I’m… I’m asking you if you could.”</p><p> </p><p>He was thinking now, and it felt like she was waiting for him to choose how her life would go from here on out. And as she waited, she had just the smallest flash of fear. Was she doing the right thing? What if she messed it all up? What did she even know about love anyway? Maybe she shouldn’t have pressed on the matter, maybe she should have waited, next visit…</p><p> </p><p>“You really want me to do this?” he asked her, honestly.</p><p> </p><p>“Only if you want to… but yes…” She’d had her waver; she had to be strong again.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She looked at him, and he looked her in the eye. “I do want to.” She took a breath, finally… “Are you sure you want me to do it right now? I’m headed out, you guys, too…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, now,” she nodded. Shawn nodded back. He stood up, stepping in place, scratching at the back of his head. He pointed back at the door, and she sat back: I’ll wait right here.</p><p> </p><p>So, he walked out of her room. Maya stayed where she sat, breathing deep. She could just hear what was going on out there, like Shawn had found her mother in the kitchen. It was the hum of voices. One, then the other, then one again… pause… the one again, more… then the other again, short…</p><p> </p><p>Maya stood from the bay window, tip toeing up to the open door, trying to stay hidden but also to see what was going on out there. She caught one peek at the pair of them standing in the kitchen, and she stepped back into hiding, feeling her heart ramp up at once. They were smiling, both of them. He’d asked her. She’d said yes. They looked so much like they were glad, even… relieved?</p><p> </p><p>She could barely contain herself. All of a sudden, she felt like dancing, like shouting… Well, she didn’t do the shouting part, not on the outside anyway, but then there she was, sort of hopping about, pent up energy working its way out of her in bursts.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She thanked whatever power made that when her mother came calling, it was from out in the hall, so that she had stopped moving by the time her mother appeared at the door. “I need to tell you something.” By the look on her face, Maya guessed Shawn hadn’t told her what they’d been talking about; she was going on the impression that he’d chosen to do this now all on his own.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” Maya went up to her. Her mother almost looked shy here, and it was kind of sweet. “What’s up?”</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn… asked me to go out with him… on a date. Now, I said yes, but if you don’t want me to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, do it,” Maya cut her off, smiling, before reaching to embrace her. Her mother hugged her back, squeezed her.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how this is going to work yet but…”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll find a way,” Maya insisted. “You always do. I know you do, you will.” Her mother squeezed her again, and she laughed. “I love you, Mom,” she spoke at her ear, and she knew the next words she’d hear would be…</p><p> </p><p>“I love you so much, Baby Girl…”</p><p> </p><p>Walking out of her room, they found Shawn waiting out there, and there was nothing better for her to do than to go and hug him. Maybe it was just a date, just the promise of a date, not the long run yet, but she had surrendered her fate to possibility, and it had treated her kindly so far.</p><p> </p><p>“Well done,” she whispered at Shawn’s ear before stepping back with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>After he left, confirming the time of her game the next day, Maya went and sent a message to Riley. She knew it was anyone’s guess whether swearing her to secrecy on something like this would hold, but she had to tell her, couldn’t hold it in.</p><p> </p><p>Soon as she’d sent that message, a similar one was composed and sent to Lucas, including appropriately energetic congratulations on the boys’ win. The way she saw it, he was as much a part of the ‘must share’ circle. She would tell the others, the next day at the gym, for sure. But they were her best friends, of New York, of Texas… It was only right that the emotions coursing through her now would find them as their outlets.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0162"><h2>162. Their Christmas Among the New</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last day before Christmas break was as casual as it was endless, the closer they came to being let out. Maya had been absently drawing snowflakes, first in the margin of her notebook and then in whatever blank space which happened to be at her disposal. Not that she <em>had</em> seen much snow here, this winter or the one before; when there <em>had</em> been snow, it had been both minimal and short lived.</p><p> </p><p>But she <em>was</em> looking forward to these next two weeks. Last year, her first holiday season in Austin, she’d still been new, still been homesick to the point of almost physical pain. And yet wonderful things had happened, wonderful, memorable things. She’d met Shawn Hunter, she’d been welcomed by all her friends and their families, into their homes… Having such a thing to look forward to, it had been as much as she could want, when some previous years had not been near as ideal.</p><p> </p><p>For her at least Christmas had already come once. Over the weekend they’d had Shawn with them, his fourth visit. He was spending the holidays with his brother, Jack, but he wasn’t about to miss the chance of being here with them, too. It reminded Maya of the year before, their early Christmas dinner, the three of them. Maybe it would just be what they did, the three of them, from year to year… if she ever were so bold as to make predictions on there being more holidays with Shawn and them…</p><p> </p><p>How could she <em>not</em> let herself get carried away though, at least a little bit? Her mother and Shawn had been together for a month now. They’d had their first date before he’d left Texas the last time, and it had been as far from a disaster as any date could be, by her mother’s account. And since then, she’d been seeing her mother go around as though on a cloud. She didn’t know how they fared with the distance, only that when he had come over this past weekend, they had not stopped smiling, either one of them, for the whole time they were together, and she couldn’t speak for Shawn but it had carried on for her mother even after he’d gone.</p><p> </p><p>She’d given Shawn the painting she’d promised, and to see the genuine pride and appreciation in him when he’d pulled apart her meticulous patch work wrapping from the large canvas… It took her back to the knowledge that he’d been the one to give her the means to start doing these, last Christmas.</p><p> </p><p>He’d given her a heart-shaped necklace, a locket. Actually, they had given it to her together, him and her mother. She’d been pulling to grasp and hold the little thing in her hand since she’d gotten it, sometimes without even realizing she was doing it. But she’d hold it, and she would remember it had been a joint gift, and suddenly it would feel even more precious than it had been before. Her mother had said she’d meant to get her one before, but with the move, and all it had cost… Maya told her she understood, and how could she not, really…</p><p> </p><p>Now, with Shawn’s visit behind her, there was plenty more ahead. It was Riley’s first Christmas here, <em>their</em> first since two years before, and the whole Matthews clan was descending upon Texas in a matter of days… Maya could count on that being on her schedule, no doubt in the least, though with the addition of a seventh to their group they knew they would have to work out a schedule before long, to figure out who would go where when. Maya knew the others had all focused on her the year before, for being new, for being homesick, and she trusted they would do the same for Riley now.</p><p> </p><p>She was one of them, as she had been since day one, in some ways even before then. She’d told the others so much about her already…</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been seeing a sort of balance develop in her best friend. She saw the Riley she had always known, all exuberant and sparkling like magic. And she saw the Riley born out of their year apart, less willing to journey outside of her comfort zone in certain circumstances. But she also saw the Riley who grew from landing in this new world that was to be her own, finding her way with a renewed optimism, a relief at finding her again even though it came at the expense of what places and people and things she’d had to leave behind. Maya understood this part so very much.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was looking forward to this school break, to more time spent with her friends, as they got through both Christmas and the new year, but she also felt the slightest resurgence of something she would have hoped to know as gone for good. She had been growing afraid.</p><p> </p><p>Everything was so good, so wonderful, and nothing bad had come to take it away from her. It used to be that she would be preparing herself now for the fall, the break, because it never could be that so many good things could be happening in her life, not at once, not like this, not for long.</p><p> </p><p>No. She had to stop thinking this way. She was going to be different than this. She <em>had</em> been already, and she would continue to be. This was not her old life. It may have been the rule then, but it wasn’t now, not in her new life. She would trust it. She would put the fear aside, return it where it belonged, which was far out of her sight. Christmas was coming, and fear would not come to mess it up for her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0163"><h2>163. Their Christmas Among the Many</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Let out of school at last, the seven of them had gone on to the Friar house that afternoon, the better to sort out this business of Christmas and all it would entail for them. Lucas had never thought it could end up being so complicated to celebrate with his friends, but then they all had their traditions, all had families who wanted some parts of it all to themselves but also encouraged and welcomed the inclusion of their sons and daughters’ friends.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine had taken it upon herself to take notes as they went through the plans, and all at once it got to feel like they were in some office meeting. Maya had spoken up, wanting to ensure they had Riley well involved at all points of visit. Zay had backed this up, as Riley’s appointed guide. In the months since her arrival among them, he had been growing to look at their newest friend like someone to look after, like a sister… or a puppy.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, all of them were invited to the Matthews’ house on Christmas day, where it was quickly decided they would exchange presents. Before they could start to ponder how they would get something for everyone and what those things would be, Asher had suggested they might do a round of Secret Santa.</p><p> </p><p>“Less shopping, bigger presents,” was his reasoning, and it was soon accepted. A hat was fetched – Lucas noticed the smirk it produced on Maya’s face almost before it had fully formed – as Riley set to writing their names down on bits of paper. With a great shuffling, the draw was executed, each one of them picking out one paper without opening it.</p><p> </p><p>“If anyone has their own name, we all have to draw again or we’ll know,” Nadine suggested.</p><p> </p><p>But as everyone unfolded their papers, no one gave notice of having their name on the piece they’d taken, so the first draw stood. Lucas had found he had become Secret Santa to Asher.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone worked to keep the identity of whoever they’d gotten a secret, though some of them looked all too pleased to mess with the others, trying to suggest one thing or another about who they might have or want to have… or not. Eventually the papers were stuck in pockets, out of sight, the better to move forward.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it going to be weird, us spending Christmas at our history teacher’s house?” Dylan asked the group before turning to Riley as much as Maya. Lucas guessed Dylan saw the pair of them as having as much knowledge on the matter as the other did, even though only one of them was in fact Mr. Matthews’ kid. But then the girls turned to each other, in silent deliberation, before turning back to Dylan. Riley seemed to defer to Maya on this.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not like no one knows you’re her friends, too, so why would it be weird?” she shrugged, but just as quickly she tipped her head to the side and went on. “<em>He</em> might not care that we’re not in class and still try and teach us something.” Riley nodded in confirmation.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be fine,” she promised with a smile. She also told them their families were all welcome to drop in over that afternoon. All of them would be headed out before dinner, except Maya and her mother who would have dinner with Riley and the whole extended Matthews clan, presently days away from descending on Austin. Lucas knew Riley’s grandparents were coming, as well as her uncles and aunt, so if any of them thought it would be weird being with their teacher at Christmas, they would no doubt find it even weirder to be with him, his wife, his kids, his siblings and his parents. “Absolutely fine,” Riley went on.</p><p> </p><p>“What about your mom’s family?” Maya had asked her. “Are they coming, too?” Riley shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to them, between Christmas and New Year’s, but we’ll be back before the eve, which reminds me, I’m inviting all of you for that, if you’re free.” They were, and they would go.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had thought to himself, when Riley mentioned going back over the break, how it might affect Maya in some way. How long had she been waiting to go back closer to her old home? Since she’d been here at all, probably. And looking at her in the next moment, he saw it in her face, halfway contained, but he found it. She was jealous, but not so much that she would show it, when her friend was happy.</p><p> </p><p>“We should try and call Farkle and Smackle on Christmas when we’re all here,” he said then, and it was one more unanimous agreement. They had been having the occasional group call with the two of them out in New York. And Lucas had put in some calls on his own to Farkle, as he’d promised he would do. He had been getting to know the boy some more, and he could say he felt bonded to him like one more friend, even if he had never seen him in person.</p><p> </p><p>The suggestion had the desired effect here, breaking Maya from her distracted beat. He didn’t know if she had realized she was in that headspace but, broken from it, the moment had passed and wouldn’t return, he didn’t think. She was happy at the prospect of bringing her distanced friends into the festivities. That was days away still, of course. For now, they had a schedule to complete, and presents to buy.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0164"><h2>164. Their Christmas Among the Shoppers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, with the intention to find the perfect thing for Nadine, whose name she’d picked out of the hat, Maya had made her way to the mall. If for some reason she didn’t find what she needed today, then she’d just go back the next day, and the one after that. She <em>could</em> have just made her something, but it would have felt almost too expected, coming from her. She had money she could spend on this, her own money, earned from work, and she was anxious to get to use it to treat one of her closest friends.</p><p> </p><p>She had barely been five minutes there at the mall when she spotted a familiar figure standing at the store directory. She knew at once the best way to approach him would be by surprise. She snuck up on him, reaching her hands up to either side of his head and giving his ears a quick pull. He spun around, batting at his ears in confusion, which made her burst into giggles. His face relaxed when he saw it was her.</p><p> </p><p>“Looking for something special?” she asked innocently.</p><p> </p><p>“Should we really be talking right now? We’re not supposed to know who we picked out…”</p><p> </p><p>“Please, you don’t have me,” she shrugged. He made to ask how she knew, but she explained, “Riley did her best to hide it, but that was just not going to happen.” She had only needed to hear her friend’s voice when they spoke, following the draw, and there wasn’t the slightest doubt. “So, who did you get? I got Nadine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Great, now I know three matches,” he shook his head. It wasn’t such a big deal, but maybe he would have liked the surprise. “I got Asher, and I’m only telling you because I know you won’t leave it alone until I tell you,” he revealed.</p><p> </p><p>“Smart boy,” she agreed. “Well alright then, we can team up. I help you, you help me, sound good?” In his mind, the benefit of this offer might not so much have been the help as it would be the presence of the helper herself. All he did was nod.</p><p> </p><p>So off they went. For a while they walked around a bit aimlessly, as they tossed ideas back and forth on what their gift recipients, as assigned by the hat, might have liked to receive. There was a bit of a debate as to getting something practical versus something just… plain fun. Plus, what if they got them something they got from their family, too?</p><p> </p><p>“You’re putting way too much thought into this,” Maya told Lucas. “Let’s do yours first. Asher, what were you thinking of getting him?” He hadn’t actually thought of anything yet. “Then what <em>would</em> you get him?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well…” Lucas started, giving it some consideration. “He reads a lot, about anything, really, so I wouldn’t get him more books. He plays with us a lot, on the team and out of it, but it doesn’t look like he’s missing anything…” He paused. He had no idea. He turned to Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s been trying to get closer to Joey,” she offered, and on that he knew they had something. Though Asher’s twin brother had been with them at school for months already, the two of them very much led their own lives. And that was fine, that was mostly how it had always been, only lately Asher had said things that led them to believe he wanted to change that, that he wanted to get closer to Joey. “You could get him something they could do together.”</p><p> </p><p>“When we were kids the two of them used to work on model trains together all the time, they were really into it. They haven’t done it in years though, do you think…” By her smile, he knew he had something. “Okay, you now,” he decided, with new optimism. “What do you want to get for Nadine?”</p><p> </p><p>As much as she had sought to help him, she had needed it just as much for herself. She had walked into the mall with the hope that inspiration would strike. Instead, she had run into him. So now she told him what she could think of off the top of her head. Again, the common thread of basketball was almost immediately ruled out, as there really was not a whole lot that she might need or even want that they would know about. So, they had to go elsewhere. But everything Maya seemed to think of was just as quickly ruled out as leading nowhere.</p><p> </p><p>“Am I a bad friend? I really can’t think of anything.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not a bad friend,” Lucas was quick to reassure her, and she was grateful for that speedy of a confidence. “I’m sure there’s something and you just haven’t gotten to it yet. We’ll go and find Asher’s gift and then we’ll find something for Nadine.” It was absolutely his intention to help and get her there, but at the same time he wanted her to be the one to find the solution, to see she was a great friend, just as she was.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she nodded, reenergized. “So, let’s go to… Where does one get a model train around here?” For a second Lucas felt as though they had gone back to the day in the museum, him and her, looking for the weird stuff. He smirked, and when he looked at her, he was almost sure she’d had the same memory.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, it’s that way,” he led them off, and she followed, as they weaved their way through the crowded mall, on a mission to find the train that would help their friend bond with his brother. They felt like heroes in disguise.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0165"><h2>165. Their Christmas Among the Memories</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leaving the store victorious, as Lucas now carried the bag containing Asher’s – and Joey’s, in a way – present, Maya declared they had earned a snack break. He guessed it might have had more to do with her feeling like a cookie when they walked past the shop and got a whiff of chocolate. Three minutes later they were stopped at a bench, Maya sitting cross-legged and with an air of delight as she broke half of her first cookie (they’d gotten five; he’d given her three) and went about chewing it at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Christmas is so not the same here,” she commented, her words muffled by the cookie. After a moment, she looked at him and promised that it didn’t mean she didn’t like Christmas here, because she did. It was just so different. He could understand how that would be. Christmas in New York was about as iconic as it got if movies were any proof. Even so, as much as he would want to experience it one of these days, he wasn’t about to give up his own traditions, his own memories. They were what made him look forward to this time every year. When he told her this, she asked him to tell her about some of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” he thought back. “When I was little, I was convinced that my grandfather was Santa Claus,” he confessed, and she laughed. “No, really, in the winter, his beard would be bigger, and whiter, you’ve seen it. And he had that booming voice and everything. Then I found out why, when Zay’s mom brought us here, to the mall, and there was the Santa with kids going to ask him for presents and to get their picture taken with him… And it was him. My grandfather. My parents had never wanted to take me here, and that was why; they didn’t want me finding out the truth like that. He’s been doing it for almost twenty years.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” Maya cut him off. “Are you telling me that right now, sitting up in ‘Santa’s village’ is your very own Pappy Joe?” she asked, giddiness rising. He nodded, and as he expected, she was on her feet in a heartbeat. “Where?”</p><p> </p><p>With little else he could do in response, he escorted her to the ramp where they would be able to see into the display on the level below. As promised, there he was, in all his glory. Even from this distance, knowing it was him, they could recognize him at once. For a while, he was almost expecting Maya to yell down at him. Instead, she went on eating her cookies, watching the kids below as they waited for their turn on Santa’s lap.</p><p> </p><p>“My Mom brought me to one of those when I was little, two years in a row, and both times I spent the whole time trying to yank the fake beard off the guy and kicking him in the legs, so after that she stopped. It wasn’t really my thing anyway,” she shrugged. She stopped talking for a while after this, and he knew some of that was for eating her cookies, which he did with his own, too, but he sensed more to this silence than not talking with her mouth full. Suddenly it dawned on him she might have had some less joyful memories tied to the holidays, what with her father leaving the way he did, and with her being so small… What must that first Christmas have been like?</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” he reached out to tap her arm. “I think I have an idea where to start looking for Nadine,” he told her, putting on his best optimistic look. She took one last look at Santa Joe, slipping her last bit of cookie into her mouth before wiping crumbs from her hands and turning to follow him. As they went, he mentioned how they might all of them build their own traditions, to make every Christmas feel connected, between them all as friends.</p><p> </p><p>“What kind of tradition?” she asked, her smile giving him hope that he was on the right track.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Something we can do, whether we’re the age we are now or when we’re adults. Something we can do, whether we’re all here in Texas or some of us might be in New York or any other place. But also, something we can do, that will matter because it’s the seven of us,” he explained. She was smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“You think we’ll still be doing this all those years from now?”</p><p> </p><p>“I do,” he vowed. She nodded slowly; she was game for it if he was.</p><p> </p><p>“We should wait to come up with something when it’s all of us then,” she told him, and he agreed. “And I think I have an idea for Nadine’s gift now,” she added. They stopped walking and he motioned for her to lead the way, which she did, with renewed energy.</p><p> </p><p>In almost no time, Maya was in possession of Nadine’s gift. Lucas didn’t understand how it would be the thing she wanted, but she assured him that Nadine would understand. It was a bit of an inside joke the two of them had, having to do with the girls’ basketball team. She promised Nadine would be laughing for weeks, but she would also love it a whole lot, or that was very much her hope.</p><p> </p><p>With their purchases made, it felt a load had been lifted. Maya still had to get something for Riley – of course – and for her mother (with some financial assistance from Shawn), but for now she felt it could wait. All she wanted for that afternoon was to spend time with her friend – which he felt very much reciprocated – and perhaps to make another visit, down by Santa’s village, where she could give a warm howdy to old Santa Joe and his great white beard.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0166"><h2>166. Their Christmas Among the Changes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Coming home she found her mother curious over her purchases as she would, playing <em>over</em> curious maybe, to see if something in that bag was for her. Maya was all too glad to play into it with her, though eventually she revealed it was Nadine’s gift. Her mother didn’t get it any more than Lucas had done, but she had expected as much, really. It made her laugh.</p><p> </p><p>In her room, she had gone about wrapping Nadine’s present, but her hands moved in one way while her thoughts were maybe further away. Her thoughts were still at the mall, with Lucas. It seemed whether she wanted to or not, the questions in her head would surface again and again until they found they weren’t being ignored anymore.</p><p> </p><p>He was her friend, her best Texas friend. She knew it, she said it willingly, if not vocally, in those words. But then there were moments when it felt like there was more to it than that, and even though she knew it was there, it was as though she couldn’t get closer, as though something stopped her. She had been a creature of adventure but underneath this mask she had been molded as a creature of caution. In some places, she had broken from this, but not everywhere, not in this.</p><p> </p><p>But there were some things she <em>could</em> say… whether she was able to face the sum of their parts or not. She knew that he meant a lot to her, this golden Texas boy… her guide. From early on, she had come to rely on him, no questions asked. Some of this had to be for the position he had been appointed, and how he was there right at the start of her first day, but then so had Zay, hadn’t he? She cared for <em>him</em> a whole lot, too. Not like this. Not like him.</p><p> </p><p>She had been able to confide in Lucas, and she had, with so much ease that it shouldn’t have been possible, but oh it was. And there had been bad times among the good, but then they told as much as the rest. The bad couldn’t have felt so bad if the good hadn’t been so good, could it? The thought of her being betrayed by him had felt as though her heart were being torn in two, a heart so very guarded until he’d been able to get his hands around it…</p><p> </p><p>She would have had him hold, hold, hold, but to feel that he could rip and pull away, that had been worst of all.</p><p> </p><p>And when she’d realized he had been there all along, that he hadn’t betrayed her, not how she’d thought it, that <em>he’d</em> been trying to hold on while her heart was on fire, burning him…</p><p> </p><p>And summer… She wanted to go to New York, she did, but deep down what she wanted even more than this was to stay here, to be with her friends, with her best friend here…</p><p> </p><p>And Riley had come, and with her the questions. Were she and him? What were they? Were they a what?</p><p> </p><p>Three months, just about, and maybe she knew some things now, whether she could put them to words or not. But she wasn’t about words, was she? She went back to that day, right here in this room, when she had put Shawn Hunter to her questioning. He had told her how he saw her mother. He said she was beyond words.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe Lucas Friar was that for her. She couldn’t explain so much of what they were, but if she closed her eyes, she could see… some things… live art, there in her mind. A boy, a girl, hands over a burning heart.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine’s present was done, covered in colorful paper, in sparkling ribbons and a bow. Maya sat there for a moment, staring at the object there on the ground where she sat. She breathed, blinked, like she’d just woken up from a deep sleep and needed to situate herself.</p><p> </p><p>When they had decided on this Secret Santa plan, she had known she would be after two or three presents. Her mother, Riley… And if she didn’t miraculously pull <em>her</em> name, then whoever she’d pick out of that hat. But maybe when she’d reached her hand in there she had momentarily thought ‘Please say Lucas.’ The paper had not said his name, and she had been just as glad that she would have Nadine as her recipient, but maybe in the breadth of those seconds, five at the most, before she had unfolded and read the paper, she had already thought about what she would have gotten him.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>had</em> money, but she didn’t have a whole lot of it. Shawn had funded her mother’s present in great part, but then with her part of that – she’d insisted – and Nadine’s, and Riley’s…</p><p> </p><p>She’d been saving up for a set of pencils she’d seen in the store weeks ago. She could always dip in there… Those pencils would still be there in a few more weeks, and she had others in the meantime.</p><p> </p><p>So that decided it. And the funny thing was in making that decision she felt… relieved, glad. She smiled to herself before taking Nadine’s present to sit under the Christmas tree until she could take it to Riley’s for the exchange in a few days. Tomorrow, she had to return to the mall. It was a good thing she’d helped Lucas find Asher’s gift already.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0167"><h2>167. Their Christmas Among the Wonders</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Since they had gone their separate ways, leaving the mall, Lucas had been feeling like there was a thought, perched just out of his reach, and he couldn’t stop himself seeing it out there and wondering what it was, wanting to know. He’d come home with the bag holding the present he’d bought for Asher, and he brought it into his room, set it down on his bed, pulled out the box and stared at it a while.</p><p> </p><p>It would be just the best thing he could have gotten his friend; he was confident of this. Asher, like the other boys in their group, had been in his life for so long he might as well have been there from the beginning and he wouldn’t have known the difference. And Joey, well he’d always just been sort of there, even if he had never been part of their group in any genuine way, and he would <em>want</em> this present to bring the Garcia twins closer together again, for Joey’s sake as much as Asher’s.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been the one to put him on track with this. He’d been trying to think of what to get Asher for hours and got nothing; she’d hit the nail on the head in five seconds flat. He looked at that box now and that was all he could think of anymore. She <em>would</em> be the one to do something like this, wouldn’t she? He couldn’t know that he wouldn’t have thought of it eventually, that anyone else wouldn’t have done it, but <em>she </em>had, and he could look back on it and think to himself ‘well, of course she did, it’s Maya.’ He knew this feeling; he was familiar with it now.</p><p> </p><p>Peace… Peace of mind. Maya was by no means a generally peaceful person, and that was just who she was, some of the time. Other times, she was the most rational person he could ever know. But that wasn’t what it was about. It was the feeling she gave to him, which he was coming to define, as time went on.</p><p> </p><p>No matter what was happening around him, if she was there, a part of him was always going to know that things were alright, and if they weren’t, then they would be, in time. How could one person alone create that knowledge in him? He had his family, sure, but this wasn’t the same, it was just… family. Still, there were things even they wouldn’t understand, but <em>she</em> did. And even with all their friends… she stood apart, in who she was, in how her presence affected him.</p><p> </p><p>Just today, when they’d run into each other, the moment he’d seen her, it felt like… like sunrise. Was that weird? He didn’t really see things this way before, but he’d started to get in touch with this more… art-like side of seeing the world. He thought this could be what it was like to learn a new language.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t have found any better way for him to describe it though. Sunrise was a new day, full of life, and possibilities… Whatever had come before, it was for yesterday. The new day was a clean slate, to make all he might want to make. Nothing was out of reach. It was a powerful thing.</p><p> </p><p>Now he knew it was there, and he couldn’t not see that it <em>was</em> there anymore. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t glad she’d stayed in town over the holidays again… This kind of made him feel guilty, knowing what it meant to her. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t wished he’d drawn <em>her</em> name out of that hat.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas paused, standing there in his room, still staring at that box.</p><p> </p><p>So, what if he hadn’t gotten her name from the draw? If he wanted to get her a present for Christmas, who was there to stop him? No one had to know, except for her… He could just pull her aside, when they all got together, give her a present and say… ‘This is for you, I wanted you to have this, just because.’ Maybe not those exact words, but near enough, sure?</p><p> </p><p>He jumped when his mother called to him. He went and found her. She’d been out all day, but she needed to head out again, and she knew he’d been saying he had to go to the mall, to shop for a friend. Did he need a ride? Lucas told her that yes, he did. He went into his room again, quickly putting the train set away before following her.</p><p> </p><p>As they drove, his mother did her thing where she asked him a question (in this case, “Do you know what you’re looking for?”) before starting off talking as though she’d asked the question to herself. Lucas heard the question, but he just as quickly shut out the rest of it.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, he did know what he was looking for, he didn’t even have to think all that much. He felt good about that, better than. With any luck, he could give her this, and she would know that it came as a debt of gratitude, from him to her. He hoped it would bring a smile to her face.</p><p> </p><p>He wished he knew what he would say, in that moment, what he would actually say. It should have seemed easy, but it wasn’t. It felt like the kind of thing where some words were better than others, and those were the ones he’d want to use, only he didn’t have them yet. How could he explain… any of this, without coming off like the opposite of what he meant? Would she know? Would she be glad? Would she not?</p><p> </p><p>He closed his eyes for a moment, calling to mind a New York morning, at sunrise.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0168"><h2>168. Their Christmas Among the Spirit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For most of their group, today would be a new experience, but for Maya… It was Christmas day, at Riley’s house, with her family who had just arrived in town the day before. She hadn’t seen that in two years, and she couldn’t wait.</p><p> </p><p>She had put on what she felt as her best holiday-celebrating dress, and she and her mother had made their way to Riley’s, Maya carrying the bag holding the presents she’d bought like she intended no one but her to be left in charge of it. They would arrive early, earlier than the others, and she was glad. It would give her a chance to exchange gifts with Riley and get caught up with her visiting family.</p><p> </p><p>She was caught up in a squashing embrace by Riley before she could make it through the door and take in the visitors. There were Mr. Matthews’ mother and father, who hadn’t seen her since Christmas two years ago, when she and her mother had been invited along down to Philadelphia. This meant of course a few minutes of their expressing how much she’d grown, how wonderful she looked… Maya was so genuinely happy to see them that she only ever smiled and let them get through it.</p><p> </p><p>The younger Matthews siblings had been unable to make the journey, and Maya felt some disappointment in that, though not nearly as much as she would have expected to, especially with regards to Riley’s young uncle. However, in their stead came a more than welcome consolation prize, in the form of Riley’s older uncle, Eric. He came to a sudden stop when he saw her standing there, set down the giggling Auggie he’d been carrying over his shoulder like one great sack of potatoes, and then hurried on over. For a moment, Maya braced herself like she was about to be hoisted just as high, but when she got a hug instead, she took it gladly.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, the others started to arrive, and as they had set out for it, they arrived with their parents in tow, for this short stop, sharing a standing lunch which would disband in the afternoon, leaving them to their own family dinners while the Hart women shared theirs with the Matthews family. Riley had already received her gift from Maya and given one in return. There, Maya discovered with some humble surprise that her best friend had fooled her: she was not her Secret Santa, but she had also gotten her a gift anyway. Now, the seven friends went and collected the wrapped presents that were about to be exchanged in Riley’s room. The girl of the house, on Lucas’ instruction, had invited a clueless Joey to follow.</p><p> </p><p>The exchange would be made as one of them gave their present to its intended recipient, and then the receiver would become the giver, until each gift had been given, or this was the intent. Riley had gone first, seeing as she was the host. She had held out her item over to Zay, with a beaming smile. Her guide had taken it with great humility, as his face went on to portray. He would in turn proffer <em>his</em> gift on to Dylan, who unwrapped it with the wild abandon they would expect from him. And when it was his turn to give, he passed the package on to Riley, who thanked him profusely upon opening it; he had become one of her closest new friends already.</p><p> </p><p>“Well now who goes next, you three all got each other,” Maya pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“Here, I’ll go,” Asher spoke up, passing the box he held toward her. “Merry Christmas, Maya… technically from the both of us since Joey pitched in,” he indicated his brother, who as usual kept fairly quiet, though he did mumble something they made out as ‘Merry Christmas.’</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks… both of you,” she gave each of them a smile. After she had opened this joined gift, she had been able to pass her gift on to Nadine. It had the desired effect of leaving everyone else confused, while its recipient got to laugh, so much she started to cry. She was still chuckling as she passed her gift toward Lucas, who closed this second loop by pushing the large box toward the twins.</p><p> </p><p>“So, it turns out you both pitched in, but I got something that was for the both of you, too, so… here you go. Merry Christmas, guys.”</p><p> </p><p>All save Lucas and Maya were mystified at this turn, and they watched as Asher took to unwrapping the gift. When it lay revealed, the other girls were confused, and the other boys took a moment before understanding. The Garcia twins, after a moment of surprise, had turned to each other, and in the looks they exchanged, Lucas knew his gift had started just what it was meant to start in them.</p><p> </p><p>They’d been called to come down and eat after this, and they came to find the gathering of parents had been bonding well enough in their absence.</p><p> </p><p>As each of them served themselves from the assembled spread, which had been garnished by a handful of dishes from their guests, a search was in progress. Unbeknownst to the other, both Maya and Lucas were looking for a moment to pull the other aside to give the gift they’d gotten the other in private. Every opportunity was dashed by one person or another, and time was running out on them. When his father told him that they would have to leave soon, Lucas decided it was time to go for it.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, can I talk to you for a minute? Over there?” he came to find her crouched next to the bag she’d brought along. She quickly stood, still holding it and looking a bit startled. She nodded, and he led her back toward the stairs. He’d stashed the gift in Riley’s room when they had done the Secret Santa exchange. Before she had a chance to say anything, he’d reached under the bed and held out the wrapped box. Seeing confusion in her eyes, he clarified that he’d been the one to put it there and he wasn’t stealing. “It’s for you… from me… Merry Christmas,” he smiled, wondering if he looked and sounded as nervous as he was.</p><p> </p><p>“You…” she slowly took the present, and she couldn’t say what was going on in her mind then, but after the surprise left her, she got to unwrapping the flat object, which was revealed as a metal box lined with colorful pencils. She looked back at him.</p><p> </p><p>“I… kept seeing you looking at them in the window every time we passed the store, I figured you should have them.” If she could react in some way, he could actually breathe again. “You did want them, right?” Finally, she smiled, and he exhaled, and then she started laughing to herself and he paused. “Maya?” She held up her finger, set the box and its wrappings on the bed before reaching into her bag and pulling out a smaller, sort of cubed box, also wrapped.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d been saving up to buy those,” she revealed. “But then I decided to use that money for this instead.” She was smiling again now, as she held out the gift. “Merry Christmas to you, too.” As he undid the careful wrapping, Lucas had a sudden feeling like he knew what was inside here. He paid attention to <em>her</em>, so why couldn’t she do the same? What were the odds that what she had sacrificed her earnings for and had just received, and what <em>he</em> had spent of his own, would be mutually beneficial?</p><p> </p><p>For as long as he could remember, his grandfather had a pocket watch, a great old thing on a chain, which little Lucas had held in his hands more times than he could count. He had come to think he would like to have one, too, maybe not so expensive of one, but still… He’d spent those savings on those pencils for Maya, and now she had gone and gifted him with just what he’d been waiting on, a pocket watch of his own.</p><p> </p><p>“So, we both kind of cheated, didn’t we?” he looked back at her. She didn’t know what to say any more than he did, but the gratitude was bursting from both of them, that and now a question of sorts.</p><p> </p><p>He had gotten her something, and she had gotten him something, both gifting these tokens of their private realizations. What it could mean, they couldn’t say if the other realized as well. And how could they even unfurl that madness here and now, when he was about to leave? They couldn’t, of course they couldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0169"><h2>169. Their Countdown to Year's End</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The week that followed Christmas ran out on them in the blink of an eye, it felt. Before he knew it, he was getting ready to head off to the Matthews’ house, on December 31<sup>st</sup>, to ring in the new year with his friends. He’d dressed up in much the same semi-dressed up way he’d done at Christmas, only with one noted addition.</p><p> </p><p>The chain clipped in place, he held the watch in the palm of his hand, pressing to make it open. The seconds ticked by for a while before he closed it again and slipped the watch into his pocket, adjusted the chain… It was all he had wanted, and she had given it to him.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know how many times he had either stared at it or held it since he’d received it. He kept finding his way back to that moment, to the look on her face… It wasn’t only the look itself but how it had made him feel. All he could think about was how beautiful she was, in looks, in personality and way of being… It wasn’t a new revelation on any count, but in that very moment it felt different; in that very moment, he had thought how much he wanted to kiss her.</p><p> </p><p>They hadn’t had a chance to hang out, any of them, not since that day. Six days on, six days for him to let those thoughts stir in his head. They’d all shared some messages here and there, but with holidays and families, that had been the extent of it, and from her nothing any different than from the others, and honestly Lucas was relieved. He needed this, a chance to stop and breathe and pull this jumble apart. He remembered, clear as all, feeling his foot start to rise, to move toward her, and then his mother’s voice from below had stopped him right in his tracks. The next thing he knew, he was in his father’s car, barely hearing his parents talking about the Matthews’ party, his hand in his jacket pocket cradling the small box holding her gift.</p><p> </p><p>He barely remembered dinner with his family that night, he’d been so caught up in those two minutes up in Riley’s room with Maya. His grandfather sitting at his side, Lucas could see the chain of <em>his </em>watch right there, and he would think… He’d told her about it, he must have, but when? He couldn’t say, and it left him to wonder how long she’d held on to that memory that she would know it was what he would want? He wasn’t even who she was meant to buy a present and she’d done it anyway, but then so had he… and he knew why… or he thought he did…</p><p> </p><p>“Luke, honey, Zay’s here!” his mother’s voice pulled him back to the present and he blinked. Zay’s mother was driving him and Nadine over to the party. He went down the stairs and found his friends waiting there just inside the door, trying not to stand too close to each other – he knew – for fear his mother would go and start asking questions about how they were doing as a couple. Oh, they were doing fine, more than, but then his mother just had a way of making it all so awkward and he couldn’t blame them wanting to keep out of it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m ready, let’s go,” he ushered them out, feeling the breath of relief pass from them at once. They piled into the back of Mrs. Babineaux’ car and they were off. He didn’t know when he’d spaced out or if they noticed. At once it had come back to him that he was about to see Maya for the first time since Christmas and it made him grow so much more nervous than he would have anticipated.</p><p> </p><p>Why should it, really? Why? Well, he knew the answer, didn’t he? The last time he’d seen her, there’d been… all of that, and after having the holidays and family and all of that forcing him to press pause on the whole thing, another trip to the Matthews house was going to set them to motion again, and then… and then… what?</p><p> </p><p>Six days he had been trying to ask himself what he would have done, if his mother hadn’t called to him. Would he really have done it? Would he have kissed Maya? More to the point, would he have come to regret it? Had he wanted to do it just because of that one moment, the surprise of the gesture? Or had he just wanted it. He’d never thought about it outright, but then did that mean he hadn’t wanted to or just that he hadn’t realized it consciously before? Hadn’t he been feeling more for her lately? Thought more about her than before? Maybe it was only the first time that he <em>knew</em>.</p><p> </p><p>But even if that were the answer, which he couldn’t say for sure that it was… That wasn’t all there was to it, there was… her. What did <em>she</em> want? Could he be so presumptuous? Sure, she’d given him the watch, but that could only be her being the great friend that she was. If he just up and kissed her he could end up ruining everything between them, this vibrant friendship of a year and a half, and that would be about the last thing he would ever want, especially if he was still working off of a confused impulse.</p><p> </p><p>He would see her today. He would see her, and then well one thing or another would have to happen. He didn’t know what thing it would be, but whichever one it was, he would just have to take her lead. Maya, she meant too much for him to throw everything away on uncertainty. <em>That</em> was the answer, it had to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, man, where are you at?” Zay was poking at his shoulder, though he stopped the moment Lucas turned to face him. “We’re here,” he nodded out of the window. Lucas turned to look. There was the Matthews house. He took a breath.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0170"><h2>170. Their Countdown to Year's Start</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya’s life up to not too long ago had nurtured in her a reverence to precious and hard-earned things. The new pencils had become one such thing. Six days she’d looked at that box, opened it, grasped this blue or that green, only to put it back, shut the box, slip it back on the shelf with her sketchbooks. Nothing, no inspiration came to her in any way seeming worthy of her breaking in a single color.</p><p> </p><p>It was just silly, wasn’t it? She’d wanted those, she’d been saving up her money with so much determination, and all along she had been conjuring up the most wonderful images, and now… now she had her pencils… and the images refused her.</p><p> </p><p>She had woken up early that day, the last of this year, and in little to no time she was on her way to Riley’s house. She had gone around the back, set the ladder, climbed up to the window, gone right through and promptly tackled a still sleeping Riley, who then shrieked, waking up the rest of the family and bringing them running into the room, dishevelled and confused.</p><p> </p><p>“Happy New Year everyone,” Maya could only beam.</p><p> </p><p>As the Matthews family slowly but surely settled into this day started so suddenly, she’d kept right where she’d landed, lying calmly on Riley’s bed, staring at the ceiling. She had never known eagerness and anxiety could be such close companions, but here they were, wrestling in every breath.</p><p> </p><p>He was coming. She hadn’t seen him in six days, and he would be here in a little while. She would see him, the first time since the last, right here in this room, Christmas day, pencils, a watch…</p><p> </p><p>Oh, she <em>had</em> seen him, hadn’t she? Not him in person, but just as well. She only had to look at that box and she could see his face. She put it up on those shelves, the ones he’d given her, helped her install. Across her bedroom walls, he stared back at her from any number of her drawings, from pictures she’d taken with Shawn’s camera last summer of all her friends… Lucas Friar was everywhere, never letting her mind in peace these past days, and so there had her mind been left to exist: with him.</p><p> </p><p>She’d gotten him that watch, knowing, hoping… that it would make him in any way as happy as she was to know he existed in her life. She had never expected in the slightest that he would come and give <em>her</em> a gift like this. Maybe it was just him being his regular cowboy self, dear Huckleberry, not surrendering to limitation and choosing to treat all his friends for Christmas and not only the one a hat had told him to.</p><p> </p><p>It could be that; she knew it wasn’t. No, she’d seen it in his face, the one she’d been seeing in that box of pencils all week. He had made an exception for her, just as she’d made one for him. And more than anything, he could have gotten her the silliest, cheapest gift, and it would have sufficed for her to know it had come from him. That wasn’t what he’d done, and it wasn’t what <em>she’d</em> done. No, he had taken those savings and he had gotten her something he had remembered her wanting and yearning for, maybe thinking she would never let herself actually buy it.</p><p> </p><p>She knew what had made her get him that watch, at least she’d felt she did. Then he’d given her those pencils and suddenly she couldn’t say anymore. All she knew was that the knowledge of his coming here today had sent her mind into a chaos of questions both great and small.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, come and help?” Topanga appeared at the door, all dressed and ready. Maya looked around the room, finding she’d been alone and wondering for how long. She got up and moved to join Riley’s mother. “Something on your mind?” she asked, ushering her along. Maya frowned, searching for words. All she could think to say was…</p><p> </p><p>“Pencils.”</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t going to be the same as Christmas. They were not going to be here until mid to late afternoon. It would just be her and Riley and their friends, waiting out the last hours of that year to ring in the new one together. She didn’t <em>have</em> to come so early to Riley’s, but really it had felt like the only thing she could do, or else she would have spent the day sitting in her house, unable to focus on a single thing. Instead here she was, helping Topanga with every task she set to her, helping the hours to pass her by and not lose it.</p><p> </p><p>But the hours <em>were</em> passing. All of a sudden, there was Dylan, there were Asher and Joey. And then Auggie, at the window, was calling back to tell them people were coming. She knew Zay’s mother would be bringing the rest of them, which meant he…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, can you take this upstairs?” Topanga came and placed a stack of empty boxes in her arms, and on automatic off she went.</p><p> </p><p>Now the cloud of distraction was lifting away and there was no way around it. Lucas was here, and she would see him in no time, and… well, she didn’t know what would happen after she did, which was really the heart of her confusion. What would he say, what would <em>she</em> say? She’d been off in some weird place for days, and what if she’d had it all wrong? What if this new year was going to start off with her not knowing how to be around him anymore? This had been the best year of her life…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0171"><h2>171. Their Countdown to a Gathering</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The boxes had been brought upstairs, and Maya turned to go back down, wondering where her breath had gone. When she heard steps on the stairs, for a moment, she found there was such a thing as a second wind as she felt this one leave, too. Was it him? Was he coming to find her?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya!” Nadine had exclaimed, throwing her arms around her friend and teammate. “Missed you,” she crooned, and Maya felt the breath will itself back into existence, smiling at the care she felt, from and toward the other girl. She had missed her, too, and she returned the hug gladly. “Look at us, six days apart and we’re in withdrawal.”</p><p> </p><p>“It sucks, right?” she had to laugh. Of course as soon as they pulled apart, her mind was lining up again, remembering where she’d been headed, and she was firmly of the belief that if she didn’t keep her lungs in check, she <em>would</em> pass out some time before the day – and the year – ran out. “Zay and Lucas came with you, yeah? I should go say hi… and the other guys, too…” she added, like piling on so many layers to hide one.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, they’re downstairs,” Nadine turned to go back down, just as Riley came up, and Maya once again had to check herself. She played it cool as her best friend came up, wanting to show Nadine something her grandparents had given her before they left for Philadelphia. As the others went, Maya had to go and follow.</p><p> </p><p>Downstairs, when Lucas had come through the door, his eyes had taken in the room, the people, and what he had intended as a thought came as words instead, when he asked where Maya was. It was Riley’s mother who answered him, saying she’d just sent her upstairs. Before he could do a thing, Nadine had hurried off after her, leaving him stood there with Zay, though he was quickly called aside by Asher and Joey, who had been showing something from Asher’s phone. They were pictures of the model train he had given them, as they’d been working on it.</p><p> </p><p>He listened to the brothers as they spoke, one voice over the other, showing their similarities as well as their differences, and he could see the gift really had its intended effect. Even so, all this left him to think about was how much he’d want to tell Maya this. He knew she was still upstairs; he’d seen Riley go up after her and Nadine before.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he felt a hand on his arm and found young Auggie Matthews staring back at him. “Can you help me?” he asked, of what seemed to be the group of boys in general. He had come to treat his big sister’s friends like so many older brothers come out of the blue. For that reciprocated bond, they had to agree and follow as he led them into the basement.</p><p> </p><p>Up in Riley’s room, Maya had every difficulty she could have to pay attention as Riley showed Nadine what she’d received. For one, she’d been there when Riley had received it, so she didn’t need to hear the whole story again. At the very least she was able to hide her distraction, and Riley and Nadine were none the wiser.</p><p> </p><p>When they got to talking about the return to school, the subject found its way toward Maya’s upcoming birthday, forcing her to once again pay attention, though only for so long, because of course she was the last person who was meant to hear of their plans for the day. She almost told them to go ahead and discuss it, sure as she was that in no time her mind would have drifted well out of earshot.</p><p> </p><p>But finally, they decided to head back downstairs, and pop went the air from her lungs. She was about certain she only made it back down there out of some gravitational force that carried her along on her friend’s trail.</p><p> </p><p>Only when they reached the ground floor, they found a noted absence. All the boys were gone, leaving only Riley’s parents, and Maya’s own mother, who had now arrived as she’d said she would. Maya was saved from showing her hand when Mr. Matthews revealed Auggie had led the guys to the basement for a ‘private meeting.’ It seemed the wait was in no hurry to spend itself, but her sanity was.</p><p> </p><p>This ‘private meeting,’ if the girls had been recruited into it, would have revealed itself to be something more akin to a general instructing his soldiers. The boys sat with barely contained smirks while the small one marched to and fro, stressing the importance that he should be kept awake until midnight so that he would see this new year begin.</p><p> </p><p>Once Team Midnight Auggie – his call – had been sworn in, they were dismissed to go about their afternoon and evening, and they started out of the basement, with Dylan carrying their young general over his shoulder as they went.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas trailed at the back of the pack, and as they stepped off the stairs and dispersed, Lucas noticed at once that here was Riley, talking with her father, and there was Nadine, sneaking her way from the kitchen with a handful of GiGi cookies, and Maya…</p><p> </p><p>There she was, sitting by the window on her own, and he barely had time to see her, to take in the effect of seeing her again, before she’d turned her head and found him standing there. For a moment, neither of them looked able to move or do anything, but then all at once he was moving toward her, while she was moving aside, to create a space for him next to her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0172"><h2>172. Their Countdown to Close Calls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas sat next to her, and if either of them had not been so wound up about what was going through their minds in that moment, they might have found this feeling was one they shared. As it was, neither of them could think anyone was as nervous as <em>they</em> were, not even the one sitting next to them.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi,” he finally broke silence, a few seconds after joining her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” she turned a light smile toward him. “What… what was that about?” she asked, pointing to the basement door. It was as good of a place as any to start, yeah?</p><p> </p><p>“Auggie wants us to help him stay awake until midnight,” Lucas explained, and she chuckled, remembering Riley telling her how he had tried the year before, too, to dismal results.</p><p> </p><p>But it was a start, breaking some tension with much needed levity. She was smiling, and he was, too, and when those smiles were turned toward one another, it was easier all of a sudden to remember everything that was good between them than to worry about any…</p><p> </p><p>“Guys, backyard, come on,” Dylan appeared all at once, startling them both before getting hold of them and pulling them to their feet. Much as they’d try and argue that they were talking, neither one of them would go and draw attention to their being any kind of importance about this one conversation, and so they could only follow and see what this was about.</p><p> </p><p>What it was about, as was often the case with their group, was basketball. There were eight of them with Joey Garcia among them, which had led to the idea of their holding a competition, four against four. Joey didn’t look particularly thrilled at the prospect, noted among them as an unskilled player, but he would participate nonetheless, for Asher, for their renewed brotherly bond. The teams were thus formed, the girls and Joey, versus the rest of the guys.</p><p> </p><p>Maya – unbeknownst to her, as much as Lucas – had meant to try and end up on the same team as Lucas, thinking it might allow them a chance to talk, somehow, but then the lineup had been created, the newer arrivals into their group – and Joey – on one side, and the old quartet on the other, so how was she to argue?</p><p> </p><p>So, the game had started. They could have complained about the four guys teaming up when they were all on the school’s team, while Maya and Nadine had a couple of ‘civilians’ in their ranks. But then both of them had sufficient confidence of their being able to take on this challenge, and so did Riley.</p><p> </p><p>They only saw the jump, and then their eyes were on the ball in flight so that they never saw how it happened that he fell. All they had was a cry out of nowhere, pain filled, and then they turned and there was Dylan on the ground, holding on to his leg and looking anguished and hurt. At once the ball was forgotten, and the game, and the teams, as they all gathered around the fallen boy. It looked bad.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad!” Riley shouted, running back for the house, “Mom!”</p><p> </p><p>The next few minutes were a blur of activity. Riley’s parents and brother came out in a hurry, telling the rest of them to step aside, though Asher wasn’t about to move, as he sat there, propping up his friend, who only seemed to be in even more pain. And it was in no way motivated by anything other than circumstance that Maya was the one who stepped aside to call for an ambulance, while Lucas did the same to call Dylan’s parents and tell them about what had happened, before moving to stand in front of the house to wait for help to come and direct it.</p><p> </p><p>Hearts sent in turmoil over the incident, it didn’t seem possible this was the same day as it had been less than an hour ago. But then they’d turned and looked at each other, and it came back to them, for a moment, like ‘Oh… there you are…’ Could they even say anything anymore? This hardly felt like the time anymore, did it?</p><p> </p><p>They couldn’t say how long it was before the ambulance came, but when it did there was no time to wait. Dylan’s parents pulled up just as they were loading him into the ambulance, and they climbed in with him, leaving their car so that it came that Cory would drive half the kids in it while Topanga drove the rest in her own. They would not want to be anywhere else than with their friend in that moment, party or no party. Maya’s mother had elected to stay and put everything away that needed putting away before joining them at the hospital.</p><p> </p><p>Maya found herself pulled into Topanga’s car along with Riley, Zay, and Nadine, while Cory would drive Lucas, Asher, Joey, and Auggie. The whole whirlwind was finally breaking; Dylan would be looked after, they didn’t need to worry as much.</p><p> </p><p>“What about midnight?” Auggie had asked his father in the Orlandos’ car. Lucas, sitting next to him, had given the boy a half of a hug, putting his arm around his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s still coming,” he assured him. “We made a promise,” he reminded, and Auggie looked comforted by these words. Lucas was happy for him on this. His eyes turned back up, to the car they were tailing, the blond head he could see there in the back. He’d only just wanted to talk to her, tell her… well, he still didn’t know, so he was going to have to know soon…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0173"><h2>173. Their Countdown to Something</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The collective party, reunited in the hospital’s parking lot, had descended upon the emergency room’s waiting room. Maya somehow hadn’t thought it would be so loaded, for it being New Year’s Eve; she’d been wrong.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I’m not liking this,” Zay grew instantly on edge when he took in the sounds and sights; Maya thought he might pass out.</p><p> </p><p>“I bet everyone’s getting hungry,” Topanga chimed in at this. “Zay, would you come with me to the cafeteria?” He nodded, quickly and silently. Nadine would accompany them, too. “Let us know if you hear from the Orlandos.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, I’ll come with,” Lucas called as they were starting off down the hall. Maya watched him go, frowning to herself. Her friend was hurt, and she was letting herself get distracted by… whatever was happening between them. She took a seat, between Riley and Asher. She looked to the boy at her side. As confident as they were that Dylan would be fine, this was his best friend, the one he’d known the longest among their group. He was worried.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, he’ll be fine,” Maya promised him. “He’ll be bragging about new scars by the end of the night.” As hoped, he’d chuckled at that, and the mood felt a little lighter all around, for Asher, and Joey at his side, for Riley, and Mr. Matthews with Auggie in his lap next to her.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone was calmer now after everything that had happened, everyone except for her. After all of two minutes, she couldn’t sit still anymore and so she stood, telling the others she would be right back and going before any of them could ask where she was going or if she wanted them to come along. On this she would have said no, and on the first… she didn’t even know. She got turned around before she knew it.</p><p> </p><p>She realized this only as she came face to face with Gina Orlando. Dylan’s stepmother wore the worry so heavily in her, as much as she tried to look strong. She’d stepped away now, maybe with the intent to let the worry run its course.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay, Mrs. Orlando?” Maya asked her, carefully reaching out and laying a hand to her arm, giving her a caring smile. The touch seemed to be all it took for the woman to shed a few tears; Maya knew even less how to deal with this, but she remained where she stood, let her cry. “He’s doing okay, right? Dylan?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yes, he… he’ll be laid out a while, recovery will be a process… He’ll be off the team for the rest of the season, that’s all he seems to be worried about now that they’ve helped him with the pain,” she shook her head, seeming to say ‘of course he is.’ Maya smiled… of course.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we see him soon?” she asked. “Everyone’s out there, they want to know, I mean…” Mrs. Orlando appeared touched to know this, remarked on how much his friends mattered to him. “He matters to us, too,” Maya told her. “When I was still new, he told me… about his mom… his other mom, how she left… He knew how my father had left us, too, and he looked out for me for that, I think… he couldn’t have done that if he didn’t have you.”</p><p> </p><p>In that moment, it felt that Mrs. Orlando was seeing her for the first time, and in a moment, Maya was being hugged, as the bearer of the woman’s peace. It flooded her and flowed back on to Maya herself. Mrs. Orlando would go back and let Dylan know they were anxious to see him, and as soon as they could come through, they would be allowed through.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was left standing alone again, though hardly in the same mental state she’d been in two minutes before. She felt lighter than she’d done all day, and better still. It took away the fear from her, just enough that she knew that when she’d finally do what she’d been so distracted over, when she’d get to talk to Lucas… she wouldn’t be so distracted anymore.</p><p> </p><p>She returned to her seat, sharing with Asher and Riley what she had heard through Mrs. Orlando. For them two and the others still with them, it was instant relief. Lucas and the others weren’t back yet from the cafeteria.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the new year?” Auggie asked his father and his sister. “Do I still get to stay up until midnight?” Mr. Matthews looked down at him, turned to Riley, and Maya, and the twins.</p><p> </p><p>“The day’s not over,” he told all of them, smiling that smile of his Maya had grown to know meant that her teacher had it in him to ensure that, if there was any way to salvage the day, it would be done. Maya saw this as an unbreakable vow; he’d never let her down from one before. They would have their midnight.</p><p> </p><p>It was only just a few hours away… There was no way Dylan would get to go home before then, just as much as she knew that they would not have their midnight with one of their own left out. All the plans they’d been setting up all day didn’t matter anymore. If they had to, they would ring in the new year, right here, in the emergency room.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be right back… again.” Moving out just past the doors, she pulled out her phone and called her mother; she was just about to leave the Matthews’ house to join them. “Wait, don’t come yet. I need you to do something else first.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0174"><h2>174. Their Countdown to Somehow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had been keeping his eye on Zay, thinking he may have reached a new level of discomfort in entering the ER and seeing people there. The last thing they needed was for him to pass out. He had chosen to follow him and the others toward the cafeteria for that reason in great part, but he wasn’t so far in denial that he would pretend like he didn’t know there were other reasons, one in particular.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know what to do anymore. Whatever had been going through his mind all day leading up to his arrival at the Matthews house, it now felt like it had been years ago. Now he was trailing through a hospital cafeteria with friends and a friend’s mother, while others waited, and one more had been injured. Dylan would recover, yes, and really of all of them he might have been best suited to come out of this still optimistic and smiling, and he knew that. It was that knowledge which left him able to feel the earlier thoughts surge back to the forefront, and now…</p><p> </p><p>It almost felt wrong to be thinking about any of it at a time like this, while at the same time there was another side that made it seem like… well why not now? It would certainly beat sitting around, worrying, wondering what this would mean for Dylan, for the night and the turn of the year. But then was it any less complicated to have to try and find a chance to talk to her, to talk about… to tell her…</p><p> </p><p>To tell her what? To talk about… what? The more time left to him before getting to do anything about it, the more he was left to see that he still didn’t actually know what he meant to say.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine seemed to have a solid handle on Zay, talking to him, pointing out what they might get from the vending machine. Really, he was in good hands with her; he didn’t really need to be there, except maybe as an extra pair of hands and arms to carry things back. Other than that, he could have been back there, with…</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” He turned back to find Mrs. Matthews looking at him. She had that look on her face, that mother look she wore so well, like she could see right into his head. “What’s the matter? Worrying about Dylan?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… yeah,” he nodded, moving toward the vending machines somewhat half-heartedly. He’d started out the day, with Maya on the mind, and now in this place of all places, she was there again. He wondered what she’d want to have and just as soon knew exactly what.</p><p> </p><p>He also knew he couldn’t say any of this, not to Mrs. Matthews. First off, she was an adult, nearly a stranger, but then she was also Riley’s mom, and if it somehow got back to Riley, then it could get back to Maya, and then it would all be out of his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s never pleasant to be here,” Mrs. Matthews went on. “Especially on a day like today.” He nodded quietly. “But then special days are special for a reason, right? Anything’s possible.”</p><p> </p><p>“I hope so,” he mumbled under his breath. He needed this, the ‘special’ power of the turn of the year. His grandfather had always believed that the way something began was important. It could set the tone as much as it could show potential building up. Lucas remembered once pointing out that something could start bad and only get worse, in the summer he’d been suspended.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s one way to look at it, but if you do, then what else is it going to be? Keep looking forward, Lucas, one foot in front of the other, that’s the way.”</p><p> </p><p>He’d seen how bad things could get between Maya and him, seen it, lived it, and never wanted to again. He’d also seen it all come back, out of the dark, and after that he’d come to believe firmly that this was how it would continue to go, the only way it could, with how important she’d grown to be for him, and – he hoped – how <em>he</em> was for <em>her</em>. Whatever would come of this conversation, he knew that it would be one step among many others.</p><p> </p><p>The loot of the hospital cafeteria was carried back by the proud quartet to those in wait. Riley’s mother had gone to bring a few things to Mr. and Mrs. Orlando, leaving Lucas, Zay and Nadine on distribution to the others. Zay was doing much better now, though they could see plainly it was nothing short of a personal battle of the wits all throughout.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” Lucas handed Maya the things he’d gotten for her. She took them, smirking at once and thanking him with a nod as she looked back to him. There it was again. The pause. What now?</p><p> </p><p>It was hardly a surprise anymore that the answer escaped him again. In the next moment, Katy Hart came into the waiting area, a burst of energy, with a pair of bags in hand, declaring that the party – or some of it at least – had come to them. And just as they’d been looking to see what she’d brought, Mrs. Matthews had returned to them, bringing with her the news that Dylan would spend the night here, once he was moved to a room, and that as promised, he would be alright. They could see him soon.</p><p> </p><p>There were fewer hours now until the end of the year than when they’d arrived, and as strange and far from what they had envisioned them to be earlier, they would be spending them as they had intended to spend them, surrounded by people they cared for.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0175"><h2>175. Their Countdown to Midnight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan Orlando greeted his visitors, laid out on his bed, leg elevated and in a cast that looked as though it covered his right leg top to bottom, and a smile as welcoming as they could ever be expected to see come out of him. Considering his condition, it was as startling as it was reassuring. And it proved what they had all quietly hoped for. It might not have been what they’d had in mind, but they would have their New Year.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we can still see the fireworks from out there,” Dylan informed them, pointing out of his room’s window. Auggie quickly ran to see, though they wouldn’t see anything for a while still. For now, they would contend themselves with listening as Dylan told them about his view of all that happened from the moment he’d fallen, injuring his ankle and then his knee in the end. If he had any concerns for what it would mean for his recovery, or his place on the basketball team, they didn’t show.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had stepped out of the room as the story had reached its end. She had been fine as they arrived and waited, but new discomfort had found her, being in a hospital… She needed to get some air, so she found her way out. The wind blowing calmly by felt in that moment like… life returned. She wished she had her sketchbook, pencils… She could make something for Dylan, to wish him well; it would keep her mind occupied.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She turned back at the sound of her name, recognized his voice in the next smallest slice of a second. “Are you okay?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I just needed to get some air,” she gestured around them. He nodded, accepting the explanation. Now that it had been given though there was a pause, wider by the second, as they both remembered how they had meant to talk, before all this, before the game. It stretched wider, in wait of one more interruption. It didn’t come. If they had anything to say, now would be the time. “Watch looks good on you,” she nodded to the chain leading into his pocket. Lucas reached to touch it, smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I almost didn’t wear it out, I keep thinking I’ll lose it,” he admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s why there’s a clip,” she pointed, as she mimed, and he agreed with a quiet nod. “If it’s on good, then you won’t lose it.” The overture had been made, but then it floundered, as neither of them looked as though they knew how to say what they needed to say.</p><p> </p><p>“I… I still can’t believe you remembered me saying I wanted one,” he finally decided to continue down this road, to see where it would take him. Maya was only glad he didn’t ask about how she liked the pencils, or she would have had to tell him she hadn’t used them yet. As valid as her reasons were, right now it felt like it wouldn’t have come out right.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t. I mean… I just saw you and your grandfather a few times where you had it, you looked like you really liked it. Last summer, when we all went camping with him, I asked if you had one, too, and he said you didn’t.” Lucas listened, and his greatest takeaway from this was that the gift might have meant more to him now than it had done before.</p><p> </p><p>She was just there in front of him, he could tell her about that moment on Christmas day and what he had felt, but something about seeing her face when he meant to speak only made it so that he couldn’t know how to do it. He could read as much as he wanted in her coming up and giving him that watch, but he could be just plain wrong, and if he was then… ‘whatever may come’ didn’t feel prudent anymore, not with their friendship on the line. Because he knew that it was. Because after a week apart, and seeing her again, he knew that a part of him had truly and surely ventured beyond the line of friendship now, sailing carefully toward that next line, trailing wider and more self-assured by the day. She meant that much more now, and never having felt anything of the sort before, it felt like if he wasn’t careful…</p><p> </p><p>If Maya had not been so taken with her own flight of contemplation, she might have been able to bail him out, just as he could have done for her. It was only that, not too long ago, after her brief run in with Mrs. Orlando, she’d felt so sure that she was ready for whatever would come from her talking to Lucas, and it had been a good feeling to have, but now… now he was right there and she was at a loss for words and it made her angry. Not at him, no, never at him, just at herself. Why did she have to turn into this when she just wanted to… to…</p><p> </p><p>To what? What did she want? What did she have in her heart and mind that made it so impossible to let it all get a bit more… real… substantial…</p><p> </p><p>“Do you have any resolutions for next year?” she ended up asking when she couldn’t think of anything else to say. He looked at her, thinking of what he might say.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t really make them,” he admitted. “I tried before, and it never happened. I don’t think it’d work, putting any pressure on things to be done instead of just… letting them happen when they’re supposed to. Does that make sense?” In this beat of silence, it felt like he’d said one thing but then another one, too, and now that he had, it could almost be said he had covertly asked exactly what he’d meant to ask, and now he just had to hope that she had understood and would reply in kind, or she would only have caught the plain meaning of his words and she would carry on unaware of the under layer.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… I guess that makes sense,” she slowly started. “I mean you wouldn’t want to rush in and get stuck, right?” He nodded as she paused. “I haven’t used the new pencils yet,” she confessed. “I’m so glad I have them now, and it wouldn’t feel right to use them for just anything. Then they’d be gone so fast and…” She looked at him in a way that seemed to ask ‘you know what I mean?’</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he nodded, answering the unspoken words. She gave a smile as thankful as it was sort of cautious, almost… apologetic? “Keep them as long as you need to,” he went on, wanting only that she didn’t have to feel in any way uneasy. He didn’t doubt one bit that they had said exactly what he thought they had, and if that was the case, then he could deal with it, just as he’d told himself earlier, in the hospital cafeteria. “Want to go back in there?” he tipped his head to the doors.</p><p> </p><p>The hours leading to the end of the year had worn away before they knew it. The visiting hours had given some leeway in light of the date, though they knew they would have to leave shortly after midnight. Auggie Matthews, maybe for the strange setting of their gathering, had been able for the first time in his short life to see the turn of the year, and he would spend weeks and months reminding people of this feat.</p><p> </p><p>The last minutes before midnight had seen the small group gathered in Dylan Orlando’s room come to stand at the window, ensuring at the same time that the injured boy would still get to see the fireworks. Asher had stuck the sparkling hat and glasses on his best friend’s head himself.</p><p> </p><p>As the last minute drew on, it seemed they could hear the whole floor counting down with them. Home or hospital, they were with their people and nothing else mattered. Mr. Matthews’ knowing smile had come through once again.</p><p> </p><p>Standing closer to the front, as the countdown began, Maya knew without turning that he was behind her. The year was turning, and she felt good. She’d been afraid before; she wasn’t anymore. As great as this year had been, this next one had space for greatness aplenty.</p><p> </p><p>Standing behind her, Lucas watched as the fireworks burst colors in the dark sky over Austin. And resting at his side, his hand felt so near to hers they almost touched.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0176"><h2>176. His Problem With Presents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had not been so long since Christmas, since New Year’s, but now here he was again, with a gift, only this time it was not behind closed doors. Today was Maya’s birthday, and as it was Saturday, there was her party. It felt like the parties kept on coming, and if not for the conversation he’d had with Maya at New Year’s, he might have been stressed about this one, too.</p><p> </p><p>Since that moment outside the hospital, things between them had been… properly back to normal, as normal as they could get, all things considered. It was the strangest thing, to find that the best thing to make both of them stop feeling or acting awkward around each other was to say – or not say – to each other that they knew there was something there, but also that they weren’t ready to see what would happen if they tried to make anything of it. All of a sudden, they were just their old selves again, and he didn’t know about her, but he was relieved. He had spent so many days feeling at once uneasy around her and so anxious to just be around her… Now they were talking again, not that they weren’t before, but for a while there’d been this sort of tension, which had needed release and finally gotten it on New Year’s Eve. They were talking again, texting randomly, and she didn’t look unsure about being near him anymore.</p><p> </p><p>They’d been visiting Dylan every day that they could, at the hospital and then at his house once he’d been released. They had to work overtime to keep their restless friend entertained. Dylan wanted to get taken out to watch the rest of them play, even if he couldn’t join in, though he also thought he could still play from his seat. They had promised his mother they wouldn’t let him, as it risked his being hurt again, and besides they agreed with her on the other reason. He was doing well with his injury now, so why make him start to feel bad by having to sit on the sidelines while they all got to play?</p><p> </p><p>They attended their task with all the determination of a friendship as strong as theirs demanded and deserved. Asher was as good as living with the Orlandos, by the looks of it, always being there already when they’d show up to visit. Second to him had been Riley. She had been keeping to the logic that he would become like her, a watcher and not a player, and on that logic they had better stick together.</p><p> </p><p>Today would be a big day, for Maya, and for Dylan as well. It would be his first trip out of the house since New Year’s Eve that wasn’t medically related. He was probably going to burst from giddiness. Lucas wasn’t far behind.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered last year, Maya’s first birthday in Texas. They had all spent a solid week debating whether or not to throw her a surprise party. She was still new, and they didn’t know her well enough to know if she would like that or not. In the end, they’d landed halfway between surprise and not, bringing her to Chubbie’s, then the movies. While they’d been sat in the dark, Nadine and Asher had snuck out, gone to her house, and helped her mother set up decorations before running back. They’d been so flush and out of breath when the lights had come back up that it had fed some suspicion that those two were becoming more than friends. Even after they’d brought Maya to her house and she’d found the decorations, understanding what they’d really been up to, she’d teased them relentlessly. It had been a great success.</p><p> </p><p>This year would be so much better, and it was no wonder. Riley would be there, and Dylan would be sprung from home… Her friend would even be there, her mother’s new boyfriend, Shawn. He had said, according to her, that he’d never dream of missing it. They would all be there, and then he and her were past their awkward times… All was well.</p><p> </p><p>This year would see less misdirection. All would take place at Maya’s, but that was as she’d wanted it, and on this day, Maya Hart was queen of the land.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas headed out on his own and took the bus, reaching her house just as Dylan was being dropped off. Asher was there, along with Riley and Zay, helping him out of his parents’ car and into the wheelchair. Dylan couldn’t wait to get on crutches. Lucas had hurried up to help, but the others swore they had it and sent him onward into the house. Eventually he’d gone on ahead as told.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was there, with her mother and Shawn, as he was showing her something Lucas came to discover was a gift from Farkle, and from him as well, in a way. Farkle and Smackle were hosting an event along with their year at Einstein Academy, and Maya had been invited, along with Riley, to go and attend. Shawn would be staying in Texas until then, the better to drive them all out there. After a year and a half, Maya Hart was headed back to New York.</p><p> </p><p>She looked so thrilled all at once. And she’d cried, happy tears, before hugging Shawn, and her mother, too, once it was confirmed that she would go. And then she’d spotted him standing there, knowing he’d heard. She said she wished they could all come.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I don’t see why not,” Shawn had declared then. “If it’s alright with all your parents…” Seeing Maya’s joy redouble, it was as good as settled. That would be for another day, of course; today was her birthday.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0177"><h2>177. His Problem With the Unexpected</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had hurried to him as her mother and Shawn had gone into the kitchen, the emotion rising in her so overwhelming that he thought she would trip over herself. He was excited enough <em>for</em> her in that moment that he was barely registering his own anticipation over getting to go to New York, permission provided. She came to stand before him, tapping his arms in repeated succession as though it would settle her joy. He couldn’t have wanted to stop her, ever.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas… I’m…” she started, searching for words, and coming up with none, still too stunned.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he simply said, releasing her from the need to find her words. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?” She smirked, shaking her head, but she did take a few deep breaths. No doubt once the surprise settled in her she would have loads more to say. Meanwhile, he wondered if he could call and ask his parents right away about his going to New York with her. Getting to see it, like they’d talked about it so many times, getting to meet Farkle, and Smackle…</p><p> </p><p>As soon as Riley had come in with the others on her trail – Nadine and Joey had arrived as well – Maya had gone and told her what Shawn had told her. Riley had sounded disappointed at once, because she’d missed the telling of it; she had heard of the event through Farkle, she had advanced the possibility of this trip to him and put the wheels in motion for him to invite them. Brief let down aside, she had veered right into giddiness, more so as the invitation was extended to the rest of the group, who took immediately to the chance that they might get to go, too.</p><p> </p><p>The party had started on that high note, and it carried the mood, in music, and activity, as more of their friends from school came around, filling the little house with more life than ever. Lucas would look around, taking in all of their little group here and there.</p><p> </p><p>Here were Zay and Nadine, taking no heed that no one else was following into it and just dancing to the music, Nadine laughing all throughout. There was Asher, weaving Dylan’s chair between people, warning them to step aside so they wouldn’t knock into his leg, until they could reach the table where snacks had been laid out. Dylan had there taken advantage of his situation, using his lap to stock up with all the food he might want before instructing Asher to wheel him off with the loot. Here were Maya and Riley, faces lit up from the screen of Maya’s phone as they stood talking, he guessed, to Farkle, back in New York. Again, he couldn’t help smiling, just seeing how happy she was. Even if it ended up that he didn’t get to go, too, he felt he would be alright. If she got to go, he knew that would be enough. Although that wouldn’t stop him from doing all he could to make sure he <em>did</em> get to go. From what he’d heard before, they would be taken there by Shawn, though it would still mean two days’ journey, some meals, stopping overnight… He wondered if they would get to stay at Farkle’s house or if they’d have to go to a hotel… Alright, maybe he would be a little disappointed if he didn’t get to go. It was New York! As larger than life as it had always seemed, after feeling the love for it pouring out of Maya Hart for going on two years…</p><p> </p><p>Zay and Nadine’s dancing antics had migrated to take in their wheelchair bound friend, as Nadine had gone and taken control of it and started going around in circles with it, much to Dylan’s excitement, as he didn’t give much care that he could knock people over, or send food all over the place. But then he had Asher there, too, and Riley as well, who seemed most concerned the motion would make him sick after he’d been eating. Dylan only laughed and told Nadine to keep going.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had chuckled, staying out of the matter, only choosing to be amused by it. He looked around the room, the party in full force, everyone having a good time, the rest of the class showing how much they all genuinely cared for the girl of the day.</p><p> </p><p>The only one who seemed to stand apart in all this was Joey Garcia. He was standing near the door, looking every bit like he was about to bolt out, even though Lucas knew that was just how he always looked. When they were little, he remembered overhearing the twins’ father saying how his sons were like night and day. Asher had gotten all the confidence and left none for his brother. Maybe that was so, but Lucas had always liked him, even if he’d never properly gotten to know him enough that they would be called friends by others, deep down of course he was.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Lucas had gone up to him. “You okay?” he asked. Joey looked up at him, nodded. Lucas saw now maybe… was he nervous? “Are you sure?” Even though they were identical, it was almost impossible at times to peg him and Asher for being twins unless he really looked, like some alternate version of who he might have been.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe not… I-I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, I… I didn’t know if I could, but I think I’m ready, I… I’m going to ask her. I’m going to ask Maya to go out with me…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0178"><h2>178. His Problem With Joey Garcia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas didn’t know that he heard a single thing in the next ten seconds after Joey informed him of his intentions. He could have been knocked in the head and he would have felt the same. But it was normal, wasn’t it? Someone was bound to ask Maya out sooner or later, weren’t they? She was wonderful, and as interesting as people their age were bound to get, and… He was more than able to just admit he thought she was pretty… Who wouldn’t get caught up?</p><p> </p><p>All this would have been self-evident, but now it had become different, because now there wasn’t some hypothetical boy, there was… Joey. Joey who he’d known since they were little kids, who’d always been the kind of guy Lucas would have protected, defended, should the need ever arise, because he deserved it. He was the kind of guy he would have been more than glad to see a friend of his grow closer to.</p><p> </p><p>Except the friend in question now was Maya. And the thought of his becoming that for her just bowled over something inside him that he couldn’t name, but all he knew was that his heart had sped up the way it would when he was afraid he was about to lose something important. The last time he’d felt that was… that day, coming back to school, having to face her after the rest of them had gone on their trip and they hadn’t told her, and then… that look… Sure, the two of them were in a sort of mutual standstill, but it didn’t change that he cared for her very much, that he liked her and knew that he did.</p><p> </p><p>“… I didn’t just transfer schools to get closer, I swear. I came to be closer to my brother, I did, but… I guess if I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it or not, then that was the thing that… tipped the scales. I’m not impulsive, you know that, except this one time… I just thought… Wouldn’t it be great?</p><p> </p><p>“When she first started coming by the house, I could barely talk to her, she was just so… She didn’t even realize it, I think. And she was just nice to me, not the first, just differently, and I started to notice it more. The more time I got to spend with her, I felt more sure… and I don’t feel sure about a lot. And then you told me how she helped you find the train set for Asher and me. I think that’s when I knew I needed to do this, I just… I needed a while to work up the nerve. Now I… I…”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas didn’t think he’d heard Joey Garcia speak so much all at once in all the years he’d known him. Oh, he looked visibly nervous, and Lucas could sympathize on that, but even so… it came back to his initial thought. The words on their own would make him lay all the courage down for the timid boy to take and use. They were words that told him plainly that the girl who had inspired them mattered dearly to Joey, and the girl would be touched to hear them. But… again… the girl was Maya… and there went his heart again.</p><p> </p><p>For one moment, just one, he would look at the boy stood next to him and attempt to find some fault that would give him valid cause to prevent him going through with it. When they’d been little, he remembered finding it so strange how he and Asher were identical, except they weren’t. You could dress them the same, hair and all, and there would be no telling them apart, but only so long as neither of them moved or said a word, and then you knew. It used to freak him out, these unidentical identical twins, to the point where he would catch himself staring from one to the other if they were ever in the same room. And that was the extent of what he had to hold against him, which was to say he had absolutely nothing. Joey Garcia was a good guy, and maybe unfortunately for him, wholly worthy of Maya Hart. He couldn’t change that.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at her out there, the giddiness of her trip back to New York still bright within her, which coupled to the presence of all these guests who’d come to celebrate her birthday, of having Shawn Hunter there, all made her impossibly alive… He looked at her, saw all this, and he could only smile. He knew as soon as she got the chance she’d be making for her sketchbook, bending over it to let her memories flow on to the page by way of her hand and her pencils.</p><p> </p><p>There was the heart tremor again, the reality of Joey Garcia tinging his smile with a hint of sadness.</p><p> </p><p>Could he stop it? Couldn’t he ask her first? He wanted to, and he had known he’d wanted to since… Christmas… like Joey had done. His reasons were different, but even so, he knew it wouldn’t be right, that he wouldn’t be doing it for the right reasons, and he didn’t want to become that guy who would hear a friend’s revelation, only to use it to his own advantage. It would crush Joey, and hurt Asher, and little by little it would expand within their group, and then there’d be no group left, not for him. He would lose them all and Maya, too.</p><p> </p><p>He could have been anywhere else. Joey would have made this confession to anyone and then have asked Maya out and there would have been nothing for him to do. It was only that he <em>had</em> been the one to hear it that made it worse.</p><p> </p><p>There was no guarantee she’d even say yes, was there? He could be working himself up for nothing. That conversation on New Year’s Eve, that had gone both ways, hadn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think?” Joey asked. “Should I do it?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0179"><h2>179. His Problem With Choice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He might have seen the question coming, but he really hadn’t, and when it did, Lucas was left in conflict. Would it really come down to his word? His blessing? Yes, ask her out, or don’t. Yes, do it, let me regret it forever. No, don’t do it, let me do it instead. He knew that Joey would listen to whatever he told him; he was just nervous about it enough.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas felt like he was at that same impasse now, but for his own reasons, of course. He couldn’t even tell Joey why that was. As much as he wanted to trust that Joey would understand, that he would either decide on his own or decide not to do it, or that he would keep it all to himself, Lucas couldn’t do it. It would get mixed up, it would get out, somehow… What he had going on, these feelings he had, they were his own to hold, no one else knew… well, not except for her… sort of. He doubted she knew yet just how much he did feel for her, only that he did.</p><p> </p><p>He had to say something. Joey was looking at him, waiting.</p><p> </p><p>He could tell him not to do it, for any of a million reasons. But it was as he’d thought before, wasn’t it? If he told Joey not to ask Maya out, only to do it himself later, it could start a chain reaction that would leave him set aside by his friends.</p><p> </p><p>He could… he could tell him to do it. Even considering it would initiate the tremble in his heart again, he had to at least give it consideration, didn’t he? Suppose he told Joey to go ahead, to ask her out, and Joey did as he was told. Maya could deny him, and that would be the end of it… or it could cycle back to the chaos scenario all over again. Maya could say yes… because why not? Why not except… New Year’s Eve, the hospital…</p><p> </p><p>Was he misreading it all? Had she been talking about him and her, like he had, or just the pencils he’d given her? What if he was building himself up, only to find he was standing on top of nothing at all? He could still see her in his head, still hear her… No, he couldn’t have been wrong, he’d seen and heard right, he knew it in his heart.</p><p> </p><p>But even so, they had decided not to move on it, not yet… Did this leave space for others to come in the middle of it? What if Joey did get in the middle, then never left again? What if they stayed together? Sure, it would be in him to want Maya to be happy, in any way she might, but wouldn’t it still leave him neck deep in the dust?</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t blame Joey for putting him in this position. Joey had no idea what he was feeling, and if he had, before, then he wouldn’t have asked… wouldn’t even have gone near Maya. It wasn’t his fault, he had to remember.</p><p> </p><p>He had to find a way out of this somehow. It couldn’t be up to him. Do it or don’t, it would leave its mark on him and he would spare himself that much if he could. Besides, if Maya knew it had been his call, what might she think?</p><p> </p><p>“Joey, I… I think you need to be the one to decide…” he slowly started, finding his way. “If you’re not the one to decide, you could regret it eventually.” There. That seemed as sound a reply as possible. He looked at Joey, watched him work through this suggestion.</p><p> </p><p>“I guess you’re right,” the boy finally said. He was still nervous, his hard-earned bit of confidence vibrating within. “Thanks, Lucas.” And he walked away.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas felt like he’d been holding his breath. He could release it now, but the strain of it was still there. It wasn’t up to him anymore. Even so… It might all still come back to bite him some day, he couldn’t be sure. He had made sure to be as clean about it as possible, but there was still no telling. It would have been so much easier if Joey Garcia had been a bad guy, if he had been in any… any way faulted, but he wasn’t. He was a timid friend, taking a chance. Lucas could understand it, and he could not discourage it.</p><p> </p><p>Now that it was out of his hands though, Lucas was still left with the knowledge that something may or may not happen. If Joey decided not to do it, would he tell him? If he decided to do it, then what? Would he do it today, right at the party? Knowing him, knowing how nervous he tended to be, he would not want to leave it off to another day or he might lose his nerve. He looked again around the room, to find Joey again, find <em>her</em>…</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t happening, not now, but it could… It was going to keep working at his mind, he had to put it aside, had to…</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Huckleberry, what are you doing here all by your lonesome?” Maya appeared out of the blue and he jumped. She laughed. “Come on, it’s my birthday, I get to decide, and I decide that you’re supposed to have fun, too, not just stand there like some tall, cowboy-like statue.”</p><p> </p><p>She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to join the others, who had started dancing around Dylan in his own spaz way, while he was giving the best he could from his chair.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0180"><h2>180. His Problem With Distractions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas couldn’t say just what the others would think, looking at him as he rejoined the party. Could they see the turmoil that was happening in his mind? He was trying very much not to show it, but it was there. He didn’t want it to be, he wanted to just be here and have fun with his friends, have fun and celebrate Maya’s birthday. For a little while it would all be fine, and he would be having a great time. And then it would feel like someone said ‘wait, don’t forget <em>that’s</em> happening’ as they tapped him on the shoulder… or on the head… Then the party would briefly be knocked out of him. Only then he would see her again, stood not so far off, and he would start to focus again.</p><p> </p><p>This wasn’t what he would have wanted out of this day. He was walking around with a secret he wasn’t meant to have, one which he might have been the most ill-equipped to hold. As accidental as it had been, it felt like he’d been tricked. Was Joey going to do it? Would it happen today? Would she say yes?</p><p> </p><p>He’d gotten caught up in these thoughts again, and when he finally tried and broke himself from them, he realized everyone was moving to go and give their presents to Maya, who was brought to sit and receive. Lucas went and got his own, to wait for his turn.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the class had their go first, never to be said they had come empty handed. They gave her little things that made her smile, or gasp, or laugh, thanking each one of them in turn. Then it was up to them, their lot.</p><p> </p><p>Joey had been the first of them to go, in a way part of them but also not. Lucas watched the whole exchange despite himself, needing to see how it went. He looked nervous, but he got through it with a clear voice all the same. Maya opened it, and Lucas saw it was a movie. He remembered Maya mentioning it one movie night months ago – at the Garcia house – and saying how she hadn’t seen it in so long and couldn’t find it anywhere. She thanked Joey gladly, and he smiled and nodded, and Lucas swore in that moment Joey had made up his mind.</p><p> </p><p>Asher had followed his brother, and then Dylan had gone, carefully holding out his gift so not to knock his leg into anyone. Zay had given his, and then Nadine, and then Riley had told him to go next; she meant to go last. He blinked, focused again, and he went and gave Maya her gift.</p><p> </p><p>It could be some of the trickiest kind of present buying he’d done. What could say ‘I gave you this sort of costly present at Christmas out of some pouring out of feeling, and now we’re sort of trying to move forward slowly, but it’s your birthday, so…’</p><p> </p><p>So, he’d gotten her a new sketchbook, a great big one to fill with new images, maybe with those pencils she wanted to use with care. He knew the first sketchbook she had received had come to mean so much to her in her life since having to leave New York, and he thought it might rekindle that memory in her; it did. Seeing that smile on her face, for one moment he wasn’t thinking about Joey and his quest at all.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had gone next, giving Maya something that left her puzzled until she got her next present – from her mother <em>and</em> Shawn, together. They had given her a camera. She had been exploring photography more and more, no doubt out of her bond with her friend from out of state…</p><p> </p><p>As she’d been thanking them, and Riley and Nadine took up the task of bringing the opened presents into Maya’s room, Lucas and the other boys were made to pick up and dispose of all wrapping paper and empty gift bags. He could have dismissed the rest of them, finding doing this was as good of a distraction as he was bound to get.</p><p> </p><p>It was going to happen; he was sure of it now. It was going to happen today. He might have hoped the confirmation would relieve some of this foolish sort of conflict happening in his head. But really, the closer they were getting to it, he was fighting a battle with his mind. There was still that reckless sort of devil in there, telling him not to let it happen. It didn’t seem to matter to that bit of him that it could likely mean the end of everything and not even getting what he wanted. That devil was filled with all the confidence in the world that all would go well, that he just had to go for it.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t listen. That devil only saw so far in front of itself. It didn’t see anywhere near as far as Lucas did, into the past as well as the future. He knew all the reasons why he couldn’t do this, and, worse yet, why he had to let it happen… for better or for worse…</p><p> </p><p>He elected himself to take out the bag filled with the now collected wrappings. Standing out back, he breathed in that January air with something of relief, respite. He trailed along a while, until his foot knocked at the basketball on the ground. He picked it up, turning to the hoop and throwing. He retrieved it, started again, retrieved, threw… If he could only keep focusing on that, he could push everything out of his head, couldn’t he? He didn’t even have to think about Joey asking Maya out today, her maybe choosing to say yes… He picked up the ball and threw, picked the ball and threw, picked the ball…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0181"><h2>181. His Problem With Conflict</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He might have been out throwing that ball until, all of a sudden, he realized night had fallen, if not for Dylan. Lucas had stopped mid throw when he’d heard what he quickly discovered to be the presently wheelchair bound boy attempting to get himself out of the back door and into the yard, much as the door and his chair appeared not to get along very well.</p><p> </p><p>“Hold on,” Lucas dropped the ball to the ground and moved to help him. Within a few seconds, Dylan was sitting at ease in the yard while he stood next to him. “What are you doing out here?” The other question would be how he’d gotten away from both Asher and Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to ask you that,” Dylan turned to him before pointing to the ground, at the ball. Lucas picked it up and handed it to him; his injured friend merely held it in his lap, either for self reassurance, or to stop him from going to throw it again. “Something’s bothering you.” Lucas moved to argue, but Dylan shook his head. “It’s a party, it’s not hard to tell,” he pointed out. Maybe he had a point.</p><p> </p><p>“It <em>is</em> a party,” he slowly nodded. “Why ruin everyone else’s mood with mine?” Dylan kept on looking at him like he waited to know what that something was that was bothering him. Lucas hesitated. He guessed he could have told him; he definitely knew he could count on his confidence. But this did not seem like the kind of thing he would want to put on to his friends. All he saw was his chaos scenario taking whatever way in that it could. “School stuff, I guess,” he lied, “And thinking about what it’s going to be like without you on the team.” At least there was some truth to <em>that</em>. He hated to think of not having ‘Wild Man Orlando’ out on the court with them.</p><p> </p><p>Dylan seemed to accept this explanation. And Lucas saw the boy’s own deception; he hid it well, but in confidence they could see it was starting to reach him, too. He looked at the ball in his lap.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry you can’t play,” Lucas told him. Dylan nodded; he was, too.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you even get out here by your… Lucas, hey,” Asher appeared in the doorway before stepping out to join them. “What’s going on?” Dylan looked up at Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>“It was getting hot in there, we came to get some air,” Lucas explained, and Dylan nodded, siding up to what was unbeknownst to him Lucas’ second lie about being out here. “Are we missing anything?” he asked, the memory of Joey’s secret rearing back up again.</p><p> </p><p>“Not really, everyone’s kind of dancing right now.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas looked back through the window, hearing the music now. He could see the three girls, just barely, all turned toward one another, their circle a mad, spinning, flurry-of-hair sort of dance. He could almost hear them laughing. If That Thing had happened already, surely Asher would have told them… unless he hadn’t seen when it did. But Maya, from what he could see of her here, didn’t look like someone who’d just been asked out by a friend’s brother, did she?</p><p> </p><p>“Dyl, you’re going to get grass and mud all on your wheels and track them in there,” Asher frowned. Dylan shrugged, before taking the ball from his lap and tossing it at the hoop. When it went through, he gave ‘Nurse Garcia’ a winning grin. “Oh, so that’s how it is, huh? Okay, let’s go,” Asher went to get the ball, threw it, retrieved it, tossed it back to Dylan. “Your turn.”</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t be on the team, but maybe this would do for now. Lucas gladly joined in on this, standing by to get the ball and toss it to whoever had the next turn.</p><p> </p><p>“What, how come I wasn’t invited?” Zay came around a few minutes later. “There I am, waiting to get a chance to dance with my girlfriend, and hey, none of my other friends are there anymore, but I can hear a ball…” Lucas tossed it to him. “Two on two then?” he asked, indignation turning to readiness in a wink.</p><p> </p><p>For a while they could well have the argument right then that, chair or no chair, Dylan Orlando was one of if not their best player. He would be directed by Asher in his moments, but their combo had Lucas and Zay in the dirt and in no way was anyone letting him win.</p><p> </p><p>And then it all stopped. Lucas had turned, ready to aim again, when he looked through the window. There was Maya, and Joey. He was talking to her, and Lucas couldn’t hear what the boy was telling her, but he knew what it would come down to.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, man, over here,” Zay was calling, but he didn’t move. When Zay came up to him and took the ball from him, he didn’t move. “You okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s up there?” Asher asked. He had come next to him, to see what had caught his eye, and saw his brother and Maya.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas could have told them; it wasn’t wrong that he had the answer. But if he spoke now, he wasn’t sure what would come out. So, he kept quiet. He turned back to the guys, who were all staring at him now. He couldn’t keep watching, it would only make it worse. He took the ball again.</p><p> </p><p>“As we were.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0182"><h2>182. His Problem With Revelation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the afternoon had started to fade, the party came to wind down until it was only the seven of them, Maya’s mother and Shawn. Riley’s family would be on their way to have dinner there that night. They might have come earlier but as Mr. Matthews had reasoned, it was one thing for Riley’s guests to have their teacher hanging about, but it was a whole another for this to happen at Maya’s. Joey had gone as well; he had his own work shift down at his and Asher’s uncle’s diner.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t said anything, one way or the other regarding what he and Maya had discussed, and neither had Maya. Lucas had tried not to look at her too much like he was wondering how it had all gone down, what she’d said to Joey; she wasn’t giving too many hints on that. He might have been less subtle than her or than he’d hoped to be.</p><p> </p><p>When Riley and Nadine had instructed the birthday girl she needed to leave the room so they might ‘freshen up the décor,’ as Nadine called it, Maya had dutifully gone out to sit on the front steps to her house, though as she’d done so she had made a half-hearted lamentation at being chased from her own birthday party, and Lucas had responded to this call in offering to keep her company, before he could be recruited to help inside the house like the others had done. He followed Maya out, finding her sitting there – if he wasn’t misreading things – waiting for him.</p><p> </p><p>“Mind if I banish myself, too?” he asked, approaching the edge of the steps. She looked up at him, and now he could finally see it in her eyes, as she let him see the certain confusion in her mind. She indicated the space next to herself and he sat down.</p><p> </p><p>“So, something happened earlier… kind of weird, I… Joey… h-he asked me out.” She said it, and he could hear the surprise as well as see it. Even so, her eyes seemed to be doing the real talking. They said something more like ‘I had to tell you.’</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he confessed. He could have pretended otherwise, but it didn’t seem right to lie in a moment like this. “He kind of looked nervous earlier, I asked him what was going on, and he said… well, you know.” He fell quiet; she stayed quiet. Seconds dragged on. He had an opening, he could take it, but half of him didn’t want to know. The other half reasoned that he would have to know, sooner or later. “So… did you…” Quiet, again. He felt he knew what that would mean.</p><p> </p><p>“I did,” she said, calmly. He set himself to not react, to wait. “Never been asked out before, it was new,” she went on, in that same sort of spaced out tone. “Somehow I never thought that boy would be Joey Garcia.” Lucas couldn’t know what to say to that. “He’s a good guy, he’s nice… very shy, closed off a lot of the time, but nice, I just… never thought of him that way. Then he asked, and I asked myself what I was going to do about it. He’s a friend, he’s Asher’s brother, his twin… I think that messed with me the most, I’d never heard him talk like that, and he’d never looked so much like him before. That’s not why I even considered it though, I mean I don’t see Asher like that any more than Joey,” she specified, briefly made bolder for it.</p><p> </p><p>“No, yeah,” he could only nod. She sighed, settled again.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyway… I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings; you know how he is.” He did. “Didn’t want to say yes just for that either, that would have been worse. I’m sure he would have understood if I could just… figure out how to say it. And then I imagined myself, on a date, with Joey Garcia… It didn’t seem like it would be so bad…” she trailed off, and Lucas looked at her.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t saying it, and maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but he didn’t see it that way. What she said was ‘It didn’t seem like it would be so bad,’ but they were talkers of two levels, him and her, since New Year’s Eve, since Christmas, and that other level told him going with Joey wouldn’t be so bad, but she would have rather it had been someone else. He could never undo it, could he? Joey would always be the one who had spoken first, with words that meant what they meant.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why you said yes?” he eventually asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sort of? Really, I came down to just… My mother says sometimes ‘You won’t know it until you try it.’ She used to do that to get me to eat new things, and it would make me roll my eyes even then. But this time, I actually saw the point of it for once. Maybe if I go with him, then I might learn something… I need to learn.” She paused. “Does that make me a bad person?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, why would it?” he quickly assured her.</p><p> </p><p>“Old ways, I guess. Not that the old me wouldn’t have cared. She might have played it like she didn’t, but she would have cared, too. She would have cared a lot.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, there is no version of you I could see as being a bad person. Joey, if he’s anything like me about this… It would only matter to him that you’re happy, no matter what.” And that was truth, on all accounts, truth to put his mind at ease as well as hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I not tell the rest of them about this today?” she sighed. “I just want it to be my birthday for today.”</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t tell them,” he vowed. “You should know though, me and the other guys, we saw him and you talking before. They might bring it up.” She groaned, leaning back until her back was to the small balcony, staring up. “I won’t let them,” he told her, reaching for and tugging at her hand so she would sit up again. “I can distract them. I’m really good at it,” he declared; she snorted. “Fine, I can get them to distract themselves… themselves,” he frowned, reviewing the sentence in his head before nodding and looking back at her. “I wouldn’t let you down.” She smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“No, you wouldn’t,” she agreed.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, they had spotted the Matthews’ car coming up. When Mr. and Mrs. Matthews and Auggie had found them sitting as they did, they wondered what they were doing there. Before they could even reveal their ‘banishment,’ Riley had appeared at the door to announce Maya could now return inside.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of them, Lucas and Zay, Nadine, Asher and Dylan, weren’t staying for dinner, would be picked up and dropped off by Mrs. Orlando. So, one by one they had given Maya one more rousing happy birthday wish. As he’d gone, Lucas had given her one last quick nod; he would keep his promise.</p><p> </p><p>And certainly, the car ride had challenged him greatly, as the witnessed interaction was relayed from the other three boys to Nadine, who had not been in position to see it when it had happened. It sent speculation running rampant, and Lucas could feel a tremor in his knees. It took a time to set the other four on a course away from this subject so curious to a completely different one without drawing more attention to the first than there already was. But he did it, and when he felt they were safely set until they had all gone their own ways, he relaxed at last.</p><p> </p><p>Doing so of course didn’t mean <em>he</em> would be liberated from the subject the way they’d been. <em>He</em> knew the truth. And now he knew… Maya would go out with Joey. He could tell himself as much as he wanted that it didn’t have to mean what it would suggest. They’d talked, hadn’t they? All was not lost.</p><p> </p><p>But it would be a crossroads, of that he had no doubt. And then he remembered the other big thing that had happened today. The trip to New York. Would he get to go, would they all get to go, the seven of them… Would the date happen before or after…</p><p> </p><p>He was glad once he got home and could just stop and breathe. His heart wasn’t going so erratically as it had done earlier, but everything that had followed Joey’s telling him what he planned to do felt like exhaustion now that it was over and done with. Now he had time to stop, to rest, before whatever happened next happened.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0183"><h2>183. Her Date With Surprise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eight days from her birthday to her departure for the trip to New York. Seven of those had gone by now, and much as the plans and preparations for that trip had been a big part of those days, it almost seemed to pale at times when held up against the other event set in motion on her birthday. The day before, number six, she had her date with Joey Garcia.</p><p> </p><p>As she had hoped, none of the others had found out about it until the day after the party, not even Asher; Joey had not told him, and Maya wondered if he had figured his brother didn’t know yet and understood why that was or if he’d gotten it wrong. So, she would have to make that revelation sooner rather than later. It was just as well that all of them had about as many odds to end up gathering again on the next day as anything. They had gone to the Orlando house; Dylan had gotten to go to the party, but now it was home and rest again, as dictated by his parents and ‘nurses.’</p><p> </p><p>She had been so nervous somehow, like telling them about this would remind them of her having been new to their group until very recently… or a year and a half… still. Right then she almost felt an intruder and she didn’t want that. But then the conversation had quickly turned to the trip, giving her more time to ready herself.</p><p> </p><p>They had all been invited, which had been a great gesture on Shawn’s part, and all involved, but it would only be worth so much if their parents didn’t approve. So, all of them had asked the night of the party.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine’s mother had needed to talk to Maya’s first, but finally she had agreed, so she was in. Zay’s parents had hardly forgotten the aborted run of months before, but they also trusted their son enough to let him go. Asher – still unaware of The Date – had asked if both he and Joey might go, and they would have gotten the okay, both of them, but Joey couldn’t get away from Austin for days, not now, so only Asher would go. Of course, Riley was going, and her mother would, too, though her father and Auggie weren’t, much to the boy’s disappointment. And Lucas, with little convincing required in the end, had gotten the all-clear, too.</p><p> </p><p>The only hold out up to then, as they might have expected, was Dylan, or Dylan’s parents at least. The trip could be too much, they said, but Maya wasn’t giving up on him. She knew what it was like to be the odd one out while all your friends went on a trip together, and it might not have been the exact same thing, but it was enough that she would make it her mission that he wouldn’t get left here.</p><p> </p><p>With all this established now, she knew if she waited much longer, she would not get another chance so good.</p><p> </p><p>“So, Joey asked me out,” she’d started, and in all of a second the room had gone absolutely silent, all eyes turned to her and all but two of them in complete surprise. “And I said yes.” The voices had returned then, all at once, and she waited for them to stop. “Was I supposed to get any of that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Told you he transferred for a girl,” Dylan was the first one to speak again, to Asher, though he then blinked. “Did <em>not</em> know it would be… Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t like that,” she insisted, just as Lucas spoke up, in the same words. It brought another pause, and in this one she had shared a knowing look with him, while the others remained baffled.</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Riley had asked then, and Maya assured her it was only so she could have this conversation the one time. “But he knew,” Riley pointed to Lucas, guessing, and Maya tried to explain quickly how he had accidentally found out.</p><p> </p><p>“My brother,” Asher looked shocked still. Maya thought he would tell her he didn’t want her to do it, but it came to her that he had trouble imagining his twin on a date with his friend. Maya didn’t make it stranger by sharing her own oddity over going out with someone who had his face and near identical voice, no matter how differently he carried himself. “Look, I care about the both of you, so if this makes you happy…”</p><p> </p><p>Did it make her happy though? It didn’t make her unhappy, but then she knew why she was doing this, why she needed to do this, just as she knew that she would need to get through this to know how she felt, know what she wanted…</p><p> </p><p>Maybe that small hiccup could be sensed, because all through the week, as the day of the date had drawn nearer, all her friends, most of them, seemed to approach her with a mood that read like ‘are you sure about this?’ They never said it, but they didn’t have to. And then Joey… Every time she saw him, he would smile at her. He didn’t ‘intrude,’ and she had expected as much from him. It reminded her why she had decided to take this chance in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn was still in Austin, as he would leave when he would take her and the others off to New York. Telling him about this date, telling her mother… That had been stressful on a whole other level, so much so that she had made it all the way to the day of the date itself. She might not have told them at all, not until it was done, but then Riley had shown up on her doorstep, announcing that she was there to help her get ready for her first date.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0184"><h2>184. Her Date With Dresses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In hindsight, she couldn’t say what had kept her from telling them about that day more, her motivation and her doubts, or having to deal with how they would react to her going out on a date at all. It all became compounded as the ‘big secret’ came out with Riley’s arrival. Maya would have happily learned to disappear.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother’s voice had gotten very loud, not angry, just… loud. <em>Shawn’s</em> voice was silent, but oh his eyes and his posture shifting did all the talking. Her mother could hardly believe it, her baby girl, going out with a boy. Shawn, meanwhile, seemed to be undergoing a flurry of emotions, of which he didn’t feel entirely in control; Maya tried not to look at him, the better to let him sort through all of <em>that</em> in… private. In any other circumstance it might have gone through her mind, too, the state of him, but now she had other things on her plate, didn’t she? And now her mother was asking about the boy, though she used some other word Maya would have referred to as ‘theatrical.’ It was a wonder she didn’t roll her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s Joey… Garcia, Asher’s brother?” she revealed; she wanted to go off to her room already, let the moment be over. But it only grew, didn’t it? When she told them who she was going out with, they both looked… surprised, in their own ways. Silent though he remained, Shawn looked just a hint calmer, and she couldn’t figure out why, any more than how the impression she got off both of them, especially when her mother spoke again, was that they would have believed she was going out with someone, sure, but him?</p><p> </p><p>“Joey Garcia, the… the little quiet one, walks around like he could be part of the walls? He asked you out?” her mother asked, barely containing her surprise on this, too. “I didn’t think he even talked. He asked you out?”</p><p> </p><p>“Repeat it all you want, Mom, he did. And I said yes… obviously,” Maya sighed, turning to Riley. <em>She</em> had let the secret out, not her fault, but now here they were, and she really, really wanted to get out. Riley quickly picked up on this, and she was just as quick to act.</p><p> </p><p>“Well now you have to get ready, Maya, come on.” And she led her off to her room, shutting the door behind them. Maya breathed out, but immediately went and pressed her ear to that door, to see if she’d hear anything out of her mother and Shawn. If they did speak, it had to be in whispers because she got nothing. “You didn’t tell them?”</p><p> </p><p>“Time never came up, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, it’s been a week,” Riley pointed out, as though she didn’t know, as though she hadn’t been leading herself to mention it, with no result. “You’re still going, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I am, I’m going, look, see?” she went and opened her closet. She started pushing and pulling at this dress and that one, trying to decide which one she would wear. She finally pulled out two contenders and held them up for judging. Riley looked from one to the other, with all the importance of the task put on to her. “If you keep this up, Joey will come before I’m ready, and he’ll have to wait… with <em>them</em>,” she tipped her head back to the door.</p><p> </p><p>She pictured that, and all she could see was Joey Garcia shrinking, shrinking, until there was nothing left of him to see.</p><p> </p><p>“This one or that one,” she gave the hangers a shake. Riley passed around her, casual as ever, and pulled out a third and a fourth. “Less choices, not more, less choices,” Maya begged.</p><p> </p><p>“Not those,” Riley insisted of Maya’s original two. So, they were put away, and when she pointed to number three, it was handed to her. Maya quickly changed into it, and Riley swarmed in to get the rest of her ready; she did her best not to let things get out of hand. It could easily have done so, with how her thoughts kept trying to wander off.</p><p> </p><p>She had agreed to go out with Joey, for reasons not entirely as she would have had them known. But she had known them, and now here she was. She needed to know how it would feel, and so far… So far it didn’t feel like much. Maybe once he got here, and they left, she would come to know more for herself.</p><p> </p><p>“There,” Riley spoke, and Maya blinked, getting back out of her thoughts and finding her friend had not let her distraction go in vain. She took one look at herself and…</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she declared, picking apart some of Riley’s work, much to her disappointment. Maya quickly finished getting ready before turning back to her. “How’s this?” Riley again observed her before giving her approval. Maya looked at the time. Joey Garcia was as punctual as they came, which would allow her to spare him the great parental inquisition he might…</p><p> </p><p>She only managed to see the time turn to the set time, on the dot, and then there was the doorbell. How long would he have been out there, waiting to ring that bell right when he was supposed to? Either way, it would be too late, no sparing for him.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, your date’s here!” her mother called from the next room, and Maya wished she had ‘her date’s’ talents for disappearing right then.</p><p> </p><p>“Right, better go save him.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0185"><h2>185. Her Date With Door Bells</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The moment she opened the door and saw him there, she knew two things: one, that she should make sure and get Joey out of there as soon as possible, and two, that she wished she’d told him not to even come to the door at all, just wait at the corner or something. He’d never seemed more confident as last week, when he’d asked her out, but all that was gone as he stood just inside the door with her mother and Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother was doing her thing where she just talked and talked, as though sooner or later she’d stumble on what she <em>should</em> be saying. Maybe it was just as well, because it didn’t look like Joey would have known what to say even if he’d gotten the chance. Anyway, he was too busy keeping Shawn’s eye, in some odd little staring contest, where Joey seemed to have cast himself as a lamb against Shawn’s wolf. Maya couldn’t quite see Shawn’s face yet, but she didn’t doubt he’d be giving as good as he got.</p><p> </p><p>“Riley, I need to get him out of here,” she whispered, and her friend nodded in agreement as they stepped out fully. “Okay, I’m ready to go,” she announced, louder, to get the three of them to stop and look. Joey’s blanched little face recovered some color and split into a smile, whether it was a good idea or not. Her mother told her she looked great, growing emotional, which might have seemed sudden, to anyone but Maya. And Shawn, to his own surprise no doubt, forgot his tough guy act in that split second and gave an earnest smile.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a uh… that’s a nice dress,” he spoke, out of some part of him Maya had been developing, too, from the moment he’d come into her life. She smiled back.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she told him, then remembering Joey behind him, “We should go.” She saw the memory return to him, and Shawn turned back to their timid guest. If he was trying to intimidate him any further, it appeared he was out of luck. Joey Garcia’s smile had not left him, it stayed clamped to his face like a deflecting shield. Maya didn’t want to see what would happen if this carried on too long though.</p><p> </p><p>“So where are you kids headed?” her mother asked. Maya looked at Joey for an answer; she didn’t even know. Uncertain as she was that he’d manage to say a word, his smile shield went and worked again.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought we’d go see a movie, a-and then go to Chubbie’s after, unless… unless you don’t…” he looked to her.</p><p> </p><p>“No, that sounds fine,” she assured him, although she then asked herself if ‘fine’ should be the word to use in a situation like this. No chance of changing it now anyway. “We can see what’s playing while we’re on the bus, but if we want to make any showing soon, we should probably go now, so let’s go. Mom, Shawn, I’ll be back when I’m supposed to, okay, see you later.” She’d swooped in, to usher him out without any further incident, and there might have been some if not for Riley’s equally swift action to keep them from stopping her. When the door closed with her and Joey on the outside, she breathed.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he gave his smile another go. “Thanks for…” he pointed back to the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t mention it. Come on, let’s go before they try and come out here, too.” They started away from the house and toward the bus stop. Maya found it was really easy not to let her mind wander and think of other things when her mind was locked in ‘protect the lamb’ mode.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they were ‘safely’ on the bus, she sat back, now thinking about how it had all gone back there. It was sort of by chance that Shawn should have been there with them when this evening came along. But he <em>had</em> been there, and much as it had sort of reaffirmed the place he was coming to occupy in her life, his response to The First Date being just as she would have imagined, it hadn’t exactly been that. She couldn’t explain it exactly, there was just this feeling like Shawn’s stance had changed when he’d found out the person that she’d be going out with was Joey Garcia. He put on the whole performance with great gusto, but then there’d be the slightest hint of it being just that, a performance, almost unnecessary by the looks of him. Maybe she knew why that was, deep down, but it was deep enough that she couldn’t see it or could pretend she didn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She blinked, looked back at him and apologized. He had his phone in his hand, a list of movie times on the screen. She took the phone from him and had a look.</p><p> </p><p>“How about this one?” she asked, pointing. He nodded. “Do you really want to see it though? You’re not just saying you do because I want to?” The beat of hesitation was all the answer she needed. “Joey, it’s okay,” she smiled. “You can tell me, you know? You’re supposed to enjoy this, too. Come on, what do you want to see?” she handed him back the phone.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how this date would go, not really. The one thing she knew in that moment was that no matter how it ended, she wanted Joey to come out on the other side of it being better off. He would get through the discomforts and awkwardness of it all being new and strange to him, and then his next date, with whoever it would be, would be easier on him. That prospect alone did give a new air to things, and Maya was sort of encouraged by it.</p><p> </p><p>“This one?” Joey showed his choice, and she nodded at once.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0186"><h2>186. Her Date With Trial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had never spent any prolonged amount of time alone with Joey Garcia, not until that day. On that level already she would be left curious, of course. She would get to find out more about this boy who was a friend. In the time they had taken to arrive at the theater, bought tickets, and snacks, and then went to find their seats, Maya had seen plenty. It was hard to say how much of a discovery it was, when she might have reached certain conclusions on her own. She could expect them.</p><p> </p><p>She could expect that his openness in conversation would come and go, as it did on the bus. He wanted to talk, but he was nervous, and shy, and that was really his natural state. Adding the date factor would only crank up the levels, really. Maya could at least be counted on to understand this, to do her best to coax the words out of him in no unfriendly ways.</p><p> </p><p>She could expect that he would want to pay for the tickets but also would have difficulty speaking up for the sake of the bored girl at the counter. Maya had been more than pleased to quickly put her in her place, and the tickets had been purchased. Maybe on that display, Joey had pulled in some reserves of confidence, which saw them through the snacks. Maya could expect there that he would let her get whatever she wanted, no matter how far back it set him. A more… unkind person might have taken advantage of him there, and as they’d walked toward their theater, she warned him, hoping he would remember in the future.</p><p> </p><p>As they went, her eyes were inevitably drawn to that ceiling, that wonderful ceiling she had discovered the first time she’d been brought here, by Lucas and the others. The memory was never far away, even though she had since been to this place too many times to count. Thinking about it now, it left her with an odd sort of feeling that she couldn’t describe. It, and the memory, floated away as she followed Joey.</p><p> </p><p>They still had ten minutes until the movie would start by the time when they took their seats. Maya told Joey how she’d been trying to resist the urge to touch her snacks yet, how she would often finish them all before the movies started, and her mother would have to tell her she should have waited, because that was all she’d get for the time of the movie. Over time, she had done her best to show some restraint, with only the occasional success.</p><p> </p><p>“If I even touch one bit, it’s game over,” she declared, winning herself a smile from her shy date. “So, did you and Asher ever try and pull anything in here, with the twin thing and all that? Sneak one of you in without paying or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“Once,” he revealed, the look on his face already telling her the end of that story would go something like ‘we failed horribly, and we never tried it again.’ By the time she did get the story out of him, of the then twelve-year-old Garcia brothers, the lights had started to go down, and the movie would start, so they stopped talking.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know when she’d stopped paying attention to the movie, eyes staring forward but not really looking, and she wasn’t even aware that she <em>had</em> let her mind wander again. When she had blinked and realized it though, her thoughts were no closer to whatever was happening on the screen. She had yet to touch her snacks, by some miracle, and now she fell to them, hoping to hide her previous distraction turning into this one.</p><p> </p><p>Her mind had gone to New York. The movie was set there, maybe that was it. She had gotten to think about her old city, and the trip, and getting to show her friends around, and then her imagination had taken her back to reality, to another time when she had pictured a trip of the sort, only that time there had only been three of them, Zay, and her, and Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was all normal, with how long she had been waiting for this to happen, that she <em>would</em> be distracted at the prospect of it happening at last, but even so…</p><p> </p><p>Even so, when she looked back at Joey, she should have felt something more than this, shouldn’t she? She was on a date, but this boy was her friend and he only felt like that. If she told him she’d started to think about the trip now, she knew it would show her heart wasn’t in this, and not that it was normal for her to think about it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>If I told Lucas this, he would understand, he would know, he’s been there for all of it.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The thought had come in smooth and quiet, but once it had come, no other thought could dislodge it. However bad she’d felt for misleading Joey, the date had already served its purpose.</p><p> </p><p>Much as a part of her had thought deeply that she cared for Lucas in this way, she couldn’t let herself be convinced. But now here she was and all she could think about was that she didn’t want to be on a date with Joey Garcia, she wanted to be on a date with Lucas Friar.</p><p> </p><p>When the lights came up, Joey asked how she’d liked the movie, and she couldn’t speak. It wasn’t just that she’d only really caught the start of it, it was… that she had to get through this date without breaking his heart.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0187"><h2>187. Her Date With Error</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She didn’t know what would have felt worse, as she and Joey went on their way to Chubbie’s after leaving the theater. On the one hand, Joey could notice something had changed in her… on the other hand, he could not see it and be blindsided later. Neither option sounded any more appealing than the other.</p><p> </p><p>If he <em>did</em> notice, he didn’t say anything. They reached the restaurant, got a table… All this time, Maya was dealing with the jumble in her head. Wasn’t it a good thing that she’d realized it so soon instead of letting it carry on much longer? Oh, it would have been better if they could have sidestepped the entire date, but she’d made her choice and she’d have to live with it, wouldn’t she? Why did Joey Garcia have a face that looked like it could break so easily? How did anyone ever think he and Asher could switch places and fool anyone?</p><p> </p><p>“Did… did Ash ever tell you about the birthday we had here?” Joey spoke after they had ordered their food. Maya looked back at him, shook her head. “We were eight. It was the last year we had our one birthday party together, after that we… we started having them separate. We liked our own things, we wanted different things. He always lets me have mine first.” Her friends… she could talk about her friends, that was easy.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe this year you could have the one party again. You’re going to the same school again, doing trains together again.” He smiled at that; he knew her part in it. When she heard him mumble ‘maybe,’ she nodded. “I think he would want it, too, don’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think so,” he agreed, looking back at her. She smiled. She remembered last year’s parties. She hadn’t been at Joey’s, didn’t really know him very well yet, but she’d heard about it. She imagined it all joined again, the happiness it would bring them, and she wanted to be a part of that. “Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t really want to be here, do you?” It caught her so suddenly that she might have been surprised, but… she looked at him, and his face hadn’t changed so much. There was just the slightest sadness in his eyes, but wasn’t it always there? “It’s okay,” he went on. “I get it. I didn’t expect you’d even say yes at all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Joey, it’s not…” She sighed. What was she about to say to him? Was it what she was supposed to say? “I guess I wasn’t sure, I mean… we’ve never done this before, have we?” He shook his head. “I’m really sorry, I am. You’re my friend. I don’t hurt my friends… not on purpose,” she bowed her head.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re my friend, too,” he said after a beat, “You’re still my friend. I’m not upset that we tried.” Her eyes asked if he was sure. “Couldn’t have asked for a better first date,” he smiled again, and her head cleared, leaving only the spark underneath.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it’s not over, is it? We’re going to eat, we’re going to have a talk, you and me, yeah?” He agreed gladly. “And I’ll pay my half for this, and the movies.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s alright, I want to,” he assured her, and she let it go. “Want me to tell you about the movie?” She might have felt bad that he’d picked up on her distraction so quickly, quicker than her, but he looked amused, happy, and it made everything feel as far from guilt inducing as could be.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you?” she gave a chuckle, sitting up in wait.</p><p> </p><p>As a whole, the dinner was primarily carried in Joey’s retelling of the movie and her jumping in every so often with comments. It was the most animated she’d ever seen him, and she also got to see how strong of a memory he had, maybe even a gift for storytelling. If she hadn’t known she felt nothing for him in any way more than friendship before, this would have done it. This was the kind of thing that would make the right person fall in love with the shy twin. If there was any doubt to that, they might have asked the girl presently sat in the booth behind theirs, who had stopped listening to her mothers’ conversation when the narration had reached her ears. But this would not be their night.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell you what, if my mother ever gets her hands on you, she’ll want to turn you into a playwright or something. She’s still disappointed Zay didn’t want to try acting anymore.” The mention of her mother seemed to take his mind back to earlier that night.</p><p> </p><p>“Even after all this?” he managed a shaky joke. She laughed, she could now, recalling his arrival at her house, her mother, Shawn…</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, especially now that we’re just friends again,” she promised him. “And, you know, you could have lunch with us at school sometimes, just you or with your friends.” He thought it was a good idea. “I’m sorry you can’t come with us to New York. I’ll bring you back a souvenir, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Cool,” he nodded. “I wish I could go, too. It’s good that you finally get to go again.” She beamed, breathing out. All in all, maybe she was glad they’d done this.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0188"><h2>188. Her Date With Reflection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Joey would have taken her all the way back to her door if she’d let him, but she had promised she would be alright and told him she didn’t want him to make the trip back if he didn’t have to. So, he got off at his stop, and she carried on alone. As amicably as things had ended that evening, when the bus had pulled back on the road, she’d let out a breath. The farce was over, and now she was left to the contents of her mind.</p><p> </p><p>As much as he assured her over and over that he was alright with the end result of things, and as much as she knew that she could believe him, she still felt like a villain, to have used – yes, used – a sweet boy like Joey Garcia. Would he still be alright if he knew the whole truth?</p><p> </p><p>No matter how the results had been obtained though, they <em>had</em> been obtained. Of her many little questions, constantly buzzing in her ear like so many insects, this one felt like the queen bee, the one that led all the others around. Did she really like Lucas that way, as more than a friend? Did she want him and her to be… him and her?</p><p> </p><p>Yes… oh, yes…</p><p> </p><p>But if she thought that answering this question would solve all her issues, she now knew that wasn’t to be. She’d known already, deep down, hadn’t she? She couldn’t put it to words, to definition, and she didn’t really try, but it <em>was</em> there, and she’d known, since the start of the school year at the latest. Riley, that first night, in her room… It had started something, took her all the way to here, now, tonight… Tonight, when she’d actually succeeded in saying it… thinking it.</p><p> </p><p>And it was a thrill of a thought. She liked someone, <em>liked</em> liked someone. That had never happened before, and it had taken her all this time to understand it, but now here she was, with her heart feeling like it was dancing to the most life-giving tune. She was sitting on a bus and she couldn’t stop smiling.</p><p> </p><p>When the bus came to her stop and she had to climb out, it was like leaving her dream land and stepping back on to the land of reality, where her other buzzing questions stood in wait to crowd her again. Their leader: “So you like him, now what?”</p><p> </p><p>Well he liked her, too, didn’t he? Unless she had been royally misreading the last few weeks, she knew he did. Had she put too much stock on his actions, his words and his silences, when he was only one of her best friends? She was barely more than a kid, wasn’t she, so what did she know?</p><p> </p><p>When she reached home, with this thought still worked over her face, she was greeted by her mother and Shawn thinking that something bad had happened. If she hadn’t quickly explained the truth of it – all but the Lucas thing – she could have safely assumed Shawn would have been out the door to go and give Joey a talk… if her mother didn’t do it first. They eased off once she’d told them, but the thought had been kind.</p><p> </p><p>She told them both good night and went into her room. Another closed door, another breath let out. When she looked around her room though, she had her questions, left on pause and now unpaused. Her walls, with their art and their colors, had the power to bring memories to life, always, and tonight, with what she had on her mind, they worked their magic double time. They seemed to say, ‘look here, look there, how can you doubt it?’</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t misread him, she hadn’t, but still he hadn’t flat out said it, had he? And things were so good between them right now. Lucas Friar, her best friend from Texas… Suppose they made a try for it, dating, all of that… Suppose they messed it up, because they were kids, and they didn’t know what they were doing? She could never face him again, she would lose him, lose them…</p><p> </p><p>Did it have to change now? Did she have to say anything now? So, she liked him. Great! Wonderful! So… so wonderful… But did she have to wreck it by grabbing his hand and making that leap? Her fingers would slip, she’d lose hold, and they would fall… They needed wings…</p><p> </p><p>She went and pulled out the new sketchbook, the one he’d given her for her birthday, brought it to the seat in her window, and… She went and pulled out the untouched box of pencils… unused at least; she’d fussed with it plenty of times since Christmas, but she hadn’t used it until that night.</p><p> </p><p>She used it now, used it to put into image – or try at least – the feeling she’d had, sitting on that bus and basking in the truth of her affection for her Huckleberry. It was the most extravagant sort of explosion of expression, carrying her hand to make its work, to bring a dream to reality. When she was done, she sat back, looking at what she’d done, and she knew that if she ever forgot, she’d need only to look here and she would remember it all, down to the tips of her fingers, through heart and to mind.</p><p> </p><p>The pencils, wonderful pencils, were set back in their spaces, having done their work. The sketchbook was relegated into hiding. She didn’t suspect any snoops, but one could never be too safe with dreams.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0189"><h2>189. Her Date With Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were leaving early the next morning, bound for New York, and so the most convenient thing to do had been for all of them to gather and sleepover so they would be ready to leave without waking even earlier. All their sleepovers thus far, since she’d been in Austin, had been at her house, but this time Maya had suggested they might hold it at Riley’s house; her friend was more than willing to host their group for the night.</p><p> </p><p>It was the day after her date with Joey. She’d had some texts here and there already, some of the others wanting to know how it had all gone, if she would go out with him again… Maya hadn’t answered the questions, expertly sidestepping them; they were all going to see each other today anyway, and she knew she’d have to say something. Might as well get through it in person, right? She wondered what Asher might have gotten from his brother; he hadn’t been of those who had texted to ask.</p><p> </p><p>Maya left her house, where she could tell her mother and Shawn were looking forward to having a quiet night to themselves – not involving teenage daughters/daughter-like friends being out on first dates – there at home. She wasn’t about to go and speculate as to what they would make of this night, but if they thought she couldn’t see their casual and collected faces, they were further gone than she cared to say. <em>She</em> wasn’t about to tell them they weren’t fooling anyone. They would be making their way to the Matthews house in the morning, Shawn to follow, and her mother to say goodbye; she wasn’t coming along.</p><p> </p><p>She spent the short span of the bus ride wondering how she would fare, in explaining the night before. She was not about to walk in there and declare her feelings for that fair cowboy friend of hers, so all realizations and motivations connected back to him had to be left out. What did she have to go on once that was gone? She’d gone out with Joey, she hadn’t felt anything, he’d seen it, and they’d settled the matter and decided they were better off as friends, no harm done.</p><p> </p><p>That might well do for them… now what about him?</p><p> </p><p>When she got to the house, chaos was reigning. It had been decided that Auggie would not be coming with them, and as both Cory and Topanga had finally decided to go, he would be left to stay with Hildy. Katy’s friend and co-worker had been part of their circle of friends in Austin since Katy had introduced her to them the fall before, when they were new to the city and Maya did not yet know about the move. Auggie didn’t want to be left behind when the rest of them were bound for New York, especially when it meant being made to spend days in the house where little Sara lived. The quiet girl somehow scared the boy, by doing nothing more than to be her supremely well-behaved self.</p><p> </p><p>Presently, he was throwing a tantrum that felt just weak enough to let anyone see he was throwing on whatever he had in his bag of tricks, hoping one would stick and would convince them to bring him along, or at the very least not to make him have to stay with Her.</p><p> </p><p>“Tag me in?” Maya asked Topanga, who swept out her hand as though to say, ‘by all means.’ Maya went up to the boy, restlessly kicking his feet against the wall, lying on the ground, waving his arms and shouting through ‘tears.’ “Hey,” Maya came to stand in front of him, looking down into his face before he turned it, carrying on and refusing to meet her eye. “Want me to tell you how to be friends with Sara? She’s not so bad as you think.”</p><p> </p><p>He was listening, though he gave little sign of it and no disruption to his tantrum. Maya had known the girl for a year more than he’d done, and she’d cracked that nut in the end, finding there was such a thing as a normal kid under all that prim and proper exterior. You just had to know how to summon it out of her. Once she presented it to Auggie, the curiosity had a hold of him; now he wanted to see if it was true. Just like that, the crisis was over.</p><p> </p><p>It was just in time, too, as the others had started to arrive even as Auggie was picking himself off the floor like nothing had happened. Nadine came, and Zay, and Asher, and Dylan, and last of all Lucas, when his arrival had been the one weighing most on her. She’d gotten to wondering what it would be like to see someone again, once you realized you <em>liked</em> them. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she turned into a prattling, giggling idiot who couldn’t stop smiling?</p><p> </p><p>Well, she’d managed to keep her composure, though no one could ever know how much of a struggle <em>that</em> had been. She’d seen him come through the door, and in her mind, she was back on that bus last night, having the world’s most controlled outburst of emotions. Had he always been this cute? It had taken her a year and a half to figure that one out? Oh, Maya Penelope Hart, where was your head?</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he greeted her with a nod and a smile, and she kept her inner fool in check, returning that greeting. The way he looked at her, she knew he wanted to ask about the night before, just as she knew he would not ask it. Not that he had to worry; if five minutes managed to go by before someone asked…</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to tell us now?” Nadine asked, making no pretence of pretending she didn’t desperately want to know. That seemed to be the group’s mentality. She figured then that she might as well get through it while all the parents were out talking to each other after having dropped off their kids. She’d put the topic to rest and then they could move on with their lives.</p><p> </p><p>“It went fine, okay? We went and we saw a movie…” (‘I barely paid attention to it and had to be told about it later.’) “And then we went to eat at Chubbie’s.” (‘It was awkward at first, then better.’) “I… I just don’t feel we were meant to be more than what we are. He saw it, he was really okay about it, so… yeah. That’s all there is to it.” (‘That I will tell you about.’)</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know just what it was that they were expecting her to say, but their faces showed it was underwhelming, as far as what they actually got. At least now it had been laid out in no uncertain terms, and it would all be put to rest.</p><p> </p><p>If Maya had been in any way able to look at Lucas as she told her tale – she couldn’t, didn’t want to betray herself – she might have seen the barely contained look of relief that washed over him, carrying in a sort of quiet warmth bursting from the heart. <em>He</em> might not even have been so aware of it as to be able to control it.</p><p> </p><p>But then Zay did see it. And Riley did as well. And those two friends, grown of bonds to their respective best friends and of being guide and guided, exchanging a look, had a private smirk that seemed to say, ‘are you seeing this?’ Now would hardly be the time to bring it up, but then what was the rush? They would get to the bottom of this, oh yes, they would.</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime, Maya was glad to see Auggie’s returned ease had allowed him to come and help carry some of his bunkmates’ things to his room. Dylan, still fairly wheelchair bound, though he’d been giving crutches a go, would be laid out on the couch for the night, as going upstairs or down to the basement would not have done. Asher would sleep on the floor next to him, while Lucas and Zay stayed with Auggie, and Maya and Nadine joined Riley in her room.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they’d all forced themselves to turn in early, Maya felt like she’d been waiting to breathe out for a really long time. Her head felt so small, too small for all it was trying to hold.</p><p> </p><p>Tomorrow morning, she was heading out of Texas, on her way to the city that had seen her born and grown. After yearning for it to her breaking point’s edge, it was finally going to happen… and she was as thrilled as she was terrified. What if it didn’t go like what she’d imagined it would go? Or what if she didn’t want to leave it again once she made it there?</p><p> </p><p>Not only was she going there, with all her friends soon to be in one place together, one of those friends was Lucas Friar, and after the previous night’s realizations, he wasn’t the same anymore, he was… more.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0190"><h2>190. Their Journey to Departure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quiet as the morning began, it soon turned to frenzied noise. Even before any of them had gotten up, they had been silently awake in their beds, thinking of the travels ahead, and the destination… New York City… For some a discovery, for others a return… oh, long-awaited return.</p><p> </p><p>And then it was time to get up, to get ready to go, and no one had to be shaken out of bed; they all sprang voluntarily – or near as much as they could, in Dylan’s case. The first battle was waged on the fields of bathroom access, while others generated breakfast for all those present and those on their way, too. Shawn and Katy soon arrived, along with Hildy, come to retrieve Auggie.</p><p> </p><p>Little by little, they appeared, the road ready, anxious to depart, each one motioned to come and eat first. Maya and Riley, the first two who’d come to the table, sat huddled around Riley’s phone, where appeared – according to Maya – the Farkliest of Farkles she’d seen in years. Surely, he’d grown, both physically and in character, but he could be a hundred years old and underneath he would always be their Farkle. They were still two days out from reaching him, but it didn’t matter. They were on their way, and that was all he needed to become so happy and energized. He questioned them about the road they would take, wanted pictures of certain things, possibly some rock samples or… something… he talked so fast… Maya was so anxious to see him though, so she’d gladly bring him a boulder if he asked.</p><p> </p><p>They had to let him go and get eating, so they promised to keep him posted and left him on the solemn vow that the next time they’d see each other’s faces, it would be in person.</p><p> </p><p>The breakfast crowd was… well, crowded… around the kitchen table, which looked already like it would be a nightmare to clean. Katy and Hildy both assured Topanga that they would see to it after the rest of them had gone. They all wanted to get going as soon as possible.</p><p> </p><p>Maya and her mother had come down to Texas in a rented car. This time, she would be headed up to New York in a rented van, the better to carry the ten travelers on their trip. They might have taken two cars instead, but Maya and Riley had both pleaded for a single vehicle, and in the end that was what they got, whether Shawn, Cory, and Topanga were looking forward to two days of road with seven teenagers at their back or not.</p><p> </p><p>The luggage was carried into the van, bit by bit, the last being Dylan’s wheelchair, much as he’d insisted that he could go on crutches alone. Soon there was nothing left to do but to say goodbye to those staying behind, get in the van, and take off for New York.</p><p> </p><p>Auggie, quiet as he’d been since pulled from his tantrum of the previous afternoon, gave as good of hugs to his mother and father and sister as they could have asked for. He had never been away from them for days at a time like this, not all three of them, and the fear regained that he might never see them again. He had been comforted as best possible, though his display of love for his family had left <em>them</em> just as prone to tears as he was.</p><p> </p><p>They were not alone in this, as Maya had to deal with her mother’s tears and breath crushing hugs as they prepared to part. She would remind her mother that she would be back in a few days, and Shawn would promise to look after Maya for as long as they were out there, and Katy would promise that she knew all this, but she still needed to get this out of her system. She <em>was</em> so happy for her daughter, knowing how long she’d wanted and needed this trip, but then <em>she</em> had not been away from Maya for so long… ever, not from the day they’d put her in her arms…</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, why don’t <em>you</em> stay with Auggie?” Maya told her. It was a wonder they hadn’t thought of it until now. “You guys can keep each other company.” Cory and Topanga gave no objection to this, offered for her to stay here at their house while they were gone.</p><p> </p><p>They offered this option to Auggie, who surprise them, now showing he <em>did</em> want to go and stay with Prim and Proper Sara. When he was assured that he could still go and play with her when he wanted to, he finally agreed; he would much rather sleep in his own bed if he could. So, the arrangements were made, Katy suddenly in charge of Auggie and happily so.</p><p> </p><p>Now it was time to get into the van and start driving if they wanted to make their goal for the first day’s drive by the night. They climbed in, helping Dylan in before sorting out their seating arrangements. Zay had been the one to point out that in the end it almost looked like their arrangement in class, with Nadine and him in front, Maya and Riley in the middle, and Lucas, Asher and Dylan in the back.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, is he going to try and start to teach us something now?” Zay asked, slowly looking back ahead to where their teacher sat. Nadine smacked his arm as though to say, ‘be quiet, don’t give him any ideas.’</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, everyone buckled in?” Shawn called out from the driver’s seat. One loud and collective ‘yes’ later, the van pulled away from the Matthews house.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0191"><h2>191. Their Journey to the State Line</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She should have been exhausted. Her eyes should have been fighting to stay open. She didn’t know that she’d slept more than an hour or two the night before, but here she was, sat in the van and wide awake. They were on their way. Shawn had promised her a couple months ago that he would take her along the next time he drove back to New York, and maybe she hadn’t pictured it surrounded by so many of her friends, and <em>his</em> friends, but it was happening nonetheless. He had kept his promise; he’d never broken one yet, and she didn’t go around expecting him to. That might have been the best part.</p><p> </p><p>They were nearing the Texas state line now, and she didn’t think it would matter to her so much, but it did. It took her back to that first time coming past that line, and the drawing she’d made to note the moment. It was on one of the walls back in her room even now.</p><p> </p><p>She was getting to think that a part of her would not fully accept that this was really happening until she saw that sign again, welcoming passers to Texas… and until she saw the one doing the same in New York two days from now. They could have flown and been there in a matter of hours, but somehow it wouldn’t have felt the same. The long drive was a part of her, of Riley, of Shawn… She wouldn’t pass it up, wouldn’t give up her state lines, her sights, and the journey with her friends.</p><p> </p><p>Though all ill feelings had long been erased and forgotten, it sort of felt to her like this was the thing that would make up for the Colorado trip incident. She hadn’t been with them then – neither had Riley, of course – and they’d had a rotten time for it. Not this time. That was her vow to herself that morning. She would give them the beloved city and the wonders that came with it. Everyone would have a great time.</p><p> </p><p>Much as she spent a lot of the time as they drove with her eyes turned to the window, to see what they passed by, there was an ease to letting her mind wander in doing so. Some of it had to do with the fact that she was headed to New York again, even if only for three days. The length didn’t matter so much as the fact that she was going; she’d take a single day if she had do… an hour… a single minute. And to see those she’d left behind, that was maybe the most important part. She had two good friends waiting way out there, even if one of those had been forged primarily across one screen or another; it didn’t make it any less real.</p><p> </p><p>And when her mind wasn’t wandering off to the Big Apple, it was wandering to… well, the seat behind hers. She was anxious to show New York to all of them, yes, but she would have been lying, to them and to herself, if she pretended that she didn’t await the chance to show it to Lucas most of all. He had long been custodian to her sorrows of homesickness and to the hopes she carried of finally seeing it all again. Knowing that he would be there with her when it finally happened couldn’t have felt righter if it tried.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, now there was the thing… the Bus Feeling, as she’d come to refer to it. That was new, an added factor she couldn’t have accounted for when she’d started to imagine him in New York with her. And this complicated things a bit, sure, but not nearly as much as it might have done, or she might have assumed it would. It was just a thing, playing at the back of her mind, and that was alright. It didn’t affect how she felt or behaved.</p><p> </p><p>“Leaving Texas!” Dylan called out as they saw it was coming, and a wild cheer erupted in the van that could well have rocked it right off its wheels.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s eyes followed the passage of the sign, until she could turn in her seat and see its companion, welcoming them to the state. When she did so, her sights inevitably came to rest on him, and she smiled at him, pointing to the sign. He looked, too, much as it was already shrinking into distance. He turned back to her with a look that made her think he’d never seen it in person.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Student Driver, you remember to drive friendly?” she asked him, nodding to the sign.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it’s the Texas way,” he nodded, and when she laughed, he did, too. “You drew that when you came, didn’t you? I saw it.” She nodded again.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all going in reverse now, not the end but the start of the trip. It’s really on now.” She had to turn and sit forward, per Topanga’s request, for safety and all, but Maya didn’t mind. She wanted to see the road, see the things she’d drawn when they would pass again, see what she remembered.</p><p> </p><p>Certainly, tomorrow would be the most important time for her to do so. She hadn’t paid much attention the first time around, sad as she was, not until her mother had gotten her the sketchbook the night they’d stopped off in the middle of their journey. Maybe they would stop in the same place. Maybe she could figure out how her mother had managed to find that sketchbook and those pencils when she did.</p><p> </p><p>She might get tired as the day wore on, but she wouldn’t sleep, not a wink, wouldn’t even close her eyes except for blinking. She was going to see it all, was going to live this dream from one state line to the next, until they breached the last one.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0192"><h2>192. Their Journey to Rest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time they stopped for the night, as much as a part of them did feel some sense of exhaustion, it didn’t seem to weigh them down in any way. They had seen so many things together that day, they could have spoken well through the night if they hadn’t been convinced that they wouldn’t have gotten to see whatever they might see over the next day’s drive if they were having trouble keeping their eyes open. Almost on cue, it did feel they could do with a rest.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas didn’t worry that he might forget any of what he saw. Maya had been clicking left and right with her camera, capturing any number of highlights throughout the day. He knew it wouldn’t be until after they got home, but he could almost see the shots already. Here they all were, craning their necks at once to take in this sight, there they were, squeezing around that statue and making solemn faces… But she would also take pictures less staged, more of the moment… Zay and Nadine, standing quietly, holding hands as they waited to resume the drive after stopping for lunch… Riley talking to her mother through the van window, Topanga’s face looking to her daughter with such glowing warmth…</p><p> </p><p>He would be well aware why he had noticed all these little moments of course, and he would be wise enough now to recognize it. He would know that, try as he might, sometimes he couldn’t help but look at her, to want to look at her… Today in particular it felt like he couldn’t look anywhere else, not for all the sights in the world. It felt like she was even more alive than most days, and how could he ever ignore it?</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, or lately, in recent weeks no doubt, it felt that the world kept finding ways to remind him how wonderful he already thought she was, how her smile could eradicate all bad feelings plaguing him, how her laugh called to him like a siren song… He couldn’t escape it, nor did he want to, though he would ask himself what it was that had changed him in this way, if it was the feelings he’d been privately nurturing toward her, or the fact that they <em>were</em> private, that he continued not to act on them?</p><p> </p><p>“How is it fair, there are six of us packed in one room and there’s only four of them out there?” Zay lamented as he followed the boys and Cory and Shawn into their room for the night, as the girls followed Topanga to their own. Lucas nudged him onward rather than to tell him to be quiet.</p><p> </p><p>There were two single beds and a fold out sofa bed. They had given Dylan one of the beds for his leg, and the other to Zay to keep him from arguing and Cory and Shawn shared the sofa bed, leaving Lucas and Asher to the ground. They had packed sleeping bags and an inflatable mattress for the occasion at least, so before long they were all settled in. For a while though they had talked, all of them, the four boys momentarily forgetting that one of the two men was their school teacher. It wasn’t as though they often found themselves together like this, these young friends and those friends of years upon years… There was a sort of camaraderie in it. The only possible hitch he might have detected was an odd vibe off Shawn, who would sometimes look at him like he was trying to figure out something.</p><p> </p><p>When finally they had all gone to their respective beds, the lights turned off and all of them drifting off to sleep one by one, Lucas went on that way, too, wondering if he might have that same dream he’d had the night before.</p><p> </p><p>In his dream, it was that night again, when they’d run to the train station and tried to go to New York. Zay had gone off to get them something to eat, and then Maya – who had been falling asleep on the bench in reality – was suddenly wide awake, and she’d said ‘Let’s go, Huckleberry,’ and they’d gone. He didn’t know how it had been managed, but in the next moment they were sat on that train, and it was speeding onward, taking them out of Texas and to New York. In his dream, the sights they saw were born out of what images he had seen in his life or could conjure up. They had a thrilling journey, just him and her, and it all came to an end as they arrived in this dream New York, all of it colored in the air of a bright morning sky. When they got there… well, he didn’t know, because he’d been awakened by Auggie Matthews’ curl-crowned face peering down from overhead back in his room, where he’d spent the previous night.</p><p> </p><p>When morning came, he wasn’t entirely sure he <em>had</em> dreamed it again, if he’d dreamed at all. If he had, if he’d seen what came next, he didn’t remember, and it was almost a disappointment, but then his surroundings would hardly give him reason to be disappointed. The others were starting to wake up, too, and he could see Mr. Matthews and Shawn through the window, standing outside the room and talking.</p><p> </p><p>Soon they were all up, and dressed, packed up and off to breakfast before they could continue on to the road. The girls were laughing, as Dylan reported the events in the boys’ room the night before, down to some strange sort of snoring or talking their two chaperones gave in their sleep. Nadine laughed, and Riley laughed, and Maya… oh, how she laughed… Lucas turned his smile down to his plate to keep it to himself, because what else could he do right then? And was Shawn giving him that look again?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0193"><h2>193. Their Journey to New Roads</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been a miracle for her not to fall asleep even a little throughout the previous day’s travels, but she’d done it. When they had gotten to their room however, she’d been out like a light after she’d just sat on one of the beds to see if it would be comfortable. She had no memory of lying down or changing into pyjamas, but the next thing she knew it was morning and she had been changed, blankets pulled over her. She’d had the most vibrant dream she’d had in a long time, powered by the previous day and the one to come.</p><p> </p><p>The weather was changing on them, the nearer they were coming to New York, it felt. Maybe it was just in her head, just her knowing they were transitioning from their Texas winter to this one. Maybe the chills were just giddiness as they’d started back on the road after breakfast.</p><p> </p><p>When she would call her mother that night, as she’d done the night before, to tell her about her day, she would tell her of the moment, somewhere mid morning, which had made her wish she’d been there with them on the trip. They’d passed by a place and Maya remembered at once her mother telling her how she’d seen it and found it interesting. But on that last journey, when her mother had been fascinated, <em>she’d</em> been downcast and distracted, and she had missed it. Now she saw it, and when she did, she called for them to stop so suddenly that Shawn hit the brakes, and everyone reacted in surprise. Maya had quickly apologized before grabbing her camera and jumping out. She’d taken two pictures, one without and one with her in it and then she’d dashed back to the van with an accomplished smile and a sigh. They could go again.</p><p> </p><p>“What was <em>that</em> about?” Riley asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Just something between my mom and me, I promised,” she lied, just a bit. She <em>had</em> promised her mother, upon their leaving, that she would have fun on this trip, and this <em>had</em> been fun. She looked at the pictures on the camera, smiled again.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I see?” Lucas asked from over her shoulder. She held up the camera for him to see. “You should send it to her,” he suggested, and she sat up and did it at once. She could only imagine the look she would get when she saw it, and she hoped it would make her happy.</p><p> </p><p>As morning turned into afternoon, Maya found her mother was her constant companion, in spirit if not in person. How many times she thought back on that first drive, as they were embarking on this monumental change in both of their lives. Her mother would have had to go through all <em>that</em>, all the while seeing her, Maya, being so closed in and closed off against everything. How she wished they could do it over. ‘One day,’ she promised herself. ‘One day, me and her.’</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that she started to think something wasn’t right. There was no way they would make it to New York tonight. When she had aired this thought out to Riley, she found her friend had been thinking the same thing. When they turned this concern to Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews, they gave a look that told them the two had a surprise that they’d been waiting to spring on them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we’re not getting into New York until tomorrow morning,” Topanga told them. “You don’t want to get there after a whole day’s drive, do you?” She didn’t, she guessed, but then where were they going to spend the night? Just when she asked it, the answer came to Riley, who looked so excited all at once.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s in Philadelphia, aren’t we?” she asked, and her father confirmed it, pointing out they couldn’t very well pass through and not say hello.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was glad. Riley’s grandparents were lovely, treated her like one of their own from the moment they’d met her. And it would be good to stop for the night in a home instead of a motel. And then in the next morning they would get to New York… Finally, New York…</p><p> </p><p>When they passed into Philadelphia, there was a moment when she stopped to think… this was the place where they’d grown up, Shawn, and Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews. This was where <em>he</em> lived, right now, Shawn’s hometown. All of it made it feel like, without having lived there a day in her life, she had a piece of Philadelphia in her heart.</p><p> </p><p>The long road had ceded into residential streets, and soon they were pulling up in front of a house she’d been to before, when Riley had brought her along, but now with Shawn in the picture, knowing it had been part of his life, too… It almost felt brand new.</p><p> </p><p>Riley was the first one out of the van, off like a rocket toward the side of the house while the rest of them climbed out one by one, Lucas and Asher helping Dylan down. Maya stood back a moment, taking a picture of all of them descending upon the Matthews home.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” Shawn came to her, holding out his arm to lead her in. He looked at the place with something in the back of his eyes, too. This place mattered to him, too, she could see it. His home now, that was one thing, but this was something else. Maybe it was to him what Riley’s home in New York had been for her. Some days she lamented not having it to go back to.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0194"><h2>194. Their Journey to the Calm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t. She’d be in New York the next morning, and her brain didn’t know how to turn itself off anymore. She didn’t know what was holding her awake more, the unshakeable belief that even after driving for two days something could still go wrong and they might go back to Austin without making it to New York, or the anticipation to know she might actually get to go. After a while, she’d gotten up from her bed, which according to Riley was once her aunt Morgan’s, and crept quietly down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the yard before sitting down to breathe in the night air.</p><p> </p><p>It had been a great night for sure, all of them packed into the Matthews’ kitchen for dinner. Zay, Asher, Dylan, Nadine and Lucas had discovered the great bounty of knowledge that were Riley’s grandparents for potentially embarrassing stories about their teacher, to which both Topanga and Shawn came to contribute as the meal progressed. Maya might have felt bad, but even Cory didn’t seem to mind, which could only mean he hadn’t quite realized the ammo they were receiving.</p><p> </p><p>After dinner, they had gone to see to where they’d be spending the night, which had led to a few of them landing in the same pull to sleep she had felt the night before. Once they’d gone down, the others had left them to it and gone back downstairs, where they’d decided to watch a movie. Riley’s parents had ended up leaving to go and spend the night at Shawn’s place. Maya wished she could have gone with them but then she also wanted to stay with Riley and the others, so they’d left, and she’d wished them good night.</p><p> </p><p>They’d gone to bed right after the movie, as promised, so they would be ready in the morning. And when she had gone up there, she had assumed she would fall asleep in a flash, like she’d done the previous night. Instead, she became stuck in a staring contest with the ceiling. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she’d gone outside.</p><p> </p><p>She could have called her mother. It wasn’t late over there, and even in the middle of the night, she would have picked up. But she didn’t want it to seem like anything was wrong. She didn’t call Shawn, or Riley’s parents, for the same reason. For one hot second, she had considered crossing the short fence to go knock at the neighboring door, to see what Mr. Matthews’ famed mentor would have to say on the matter, but she decided to let the man sleep.</p><p> </p><p>She closed her eyes, tried to let the quiet and the air help her clear her head. It was cold, sure, but if it did anything to keep her from getting back to New York after having gotten no sleep, then she’d be alright. And then she heard a noise inside the house and her eyes snapped back open before moving to see who was there.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” she whispered, going back through the door. He jumped, startled, and she bit back a laugh. “Sorry,” she kept her voice down, shutting the door and moving to turn the light on. He looked just half awake, hair pointing every which way but right but still looking no worse than he ever might. “What are you doing?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… I was hungry, I didn’t know if I could…” he explained, not awake enough not to sound awkward and out of place. Maya pointed for him to sit down at the table before liberating him from the uneasiness to fish in a stranger’s fridge or pantry. Some cookies were found and put in front of him. “What were you doing out there?”</p><p> </p><p>“Trying to decide if it’s too late to play with the ball,” she told him as she stole one of the cookies back from him, then, “Couldn’t sleep. I’ll just try again, I guess. At least I’m not sleeping in my teacher’s childhood bedroom,” she gave him a look. He shrugged it off, though she did catch a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“Did your mom like that picture?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she smiled, and telling him about how her mother had gone on and on about it when she’d called earlier had swept all her concerns out of mind. From there they had gone on to recall how Nadine, Zay, and Riley had gotten caught up in collecting pamphlets, postcards, and any other tokens to track their movement across the country, leading to this afternoon’s mad dash to just find <em>something </em>before they had to go, while the rest of them urged them on from back inside the van. Maya had just managed not to shout as she imitated Riley’s panic, which then had both of them trying to keep in their laughter.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, when they’d been busted by Riley’s grandfather, they had gone back upstairs and to their respective rooms. Nadine and Riley were both still sleeping. Maya got back into bed, breathing out, closing her eyes. Then she remembered those two girls running, and Zay going so fast he’d dropped his sole find – a printed napkin – and had to chase it, and she turned her face into the pillow to muffle another laugh. In a matter of minutes, she was asleep.</p><p> </p><p>Morning would come in little to no time, with everyone getting ready to head back out on the road for the last leg of their trip, taking them into New York City. Shawn, Cory and Topanga were back, breakfast was had, and soon they were getting back into the van, as Riley hugged her grandparents and Cory came to join them, accompanied. When Asher saw the old man and asked who he was, Shawn told him how Farkle’s father, one of his own former classmates, had also invited their former teacher to his son’s event.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0195"><h2>195. Their Journey to Her City</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the moment came where they crossed into New York state, Lucas had turned, his head forward, to try and see how Maya was doing. He could only really see the back of her head at first, which was alright; he was getting used to this from class, and he’d gotten really good at reading her moods that way. But then he knew she’d turn her head sooner or later to look out the window, and then he might see her face just enough.</p><p> </p><p>It looked like she was holding her breath. They were almost there now, almost… would she still think ‘almost home’ or…</p><p> </p><p>Riley had reached out for Maya’s hand in that moment, so she’d had to breathe again, and Lucas could see her turn on the smiles for her friend, not showing her how nervous she was. Did Riley know about her troubles sleeping last night? He’d meant to ask if she’d had any better luck after she’d gone back when they got up that morning, but he didn’t get to. It was dawning or him now, and really he should have seen it then if he hadn’t been half asleep at the time, that it wasn’t just that she couldn’t sleep, it was that she was already this nervous then and it had kept her awake.</p><p> </p><p>He hoped that sharing Riley’s excitement would help her calm her nerves, that she would come to soak in the whole van’s excitement, really. At this point, what kind of friend would any of them be if they didn’t rally around her? So, he did what he could and joined into the voices as they rode on.</p><p> </p><p>One could believe their van had no need for gas, or engines, that they would be moved forward by the power of the excitement exuded within the vehicle as the city limits neared. It almost felt as though they were passing into another dimension, another reality. This was the land of Maya, of Riley, their great new friends from far away. Maya may not have been so new to them now, but she would always carry this city in her heart, they all knew it.</p><p> </p><p>And he could see it in her now. He had gone out of Austin before, out of Texas, and always when he came back and he started to see familiar sights, there would be a feeling in him he couldn’t explain in words. It was joy, but <em>that</em> didn’t seem enough of a description. Now he wondered what it must have felt like to someone who was returning after a year and a half, to someone who had ached to see it all again. But really, he only had to look at her, the way she sat. He couldn’t see her face, but… was she crying?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he called, keeping his voice low so only she could hear him. She turned her head just slightly, and he saw a flash of blue, a splash, before she turned back again. She <em>was</em> crying, crying with that word and that feeling that surpassed joy, the home feeling. He didn’t go questioning what it would mean; he was only happy for her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay,” she told him, “I… It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she asked, looking out the window, and he looked, too. The city was unfolding around them, and although the things he knew and thought of when he thought of New York weren’t all exactly there, he could still start to feel like he was discovering it… and it all felt like her.</p><p> </p><p>This was the place where she’d been born, where she’d grown for the first thirteen and a half years of her life. This was where she’d felt the heartbreak of her father’s leaving, where she’d felt the power of friendship in meeting Riley Matthews. This was the city that nurtured her, the good, the bad, all of it. This was the city she’d loved so much that it had ripped her apart to leave it. And now she was back in it.</p><p> </p><p>“There! That was our school!” Riley called as they drove past. Lucas looked at it, looked at <em>her</em> looking at it. She’d been so quiet all this time, and she continued to be. But she was happy, and that was what mattered.</p><p> </p><p>They stopped for lunch. Afterward, the eleven of them would split up, the adults going one way, leaving the seven of them kids in the hands of Maya and Riley. The guided were now the guides, and the excitement was alive in each camp. Lucas knew they would be headed to find two more to join their group, and he didn’t know about the others, but he honestly could not wait.</p><p> </p><p>As they all sat to eat, he saw what looked like Maya coming out of her bubble again, the initial shock of being back in the city having evaporated out of her. Now she was eating with her friends, all of them listening with great attention as this Mr. Feeny who’d joined them in Philadelphia was talking. The man had a way of speaking that made it sort of impossible to do anything but listen. No wonder he’d been a teacher.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered if one day they would all look back on any teacher that way. Certainly, Mr. Matthews had made an impression in the months since he’d come to their school. Would he be that for them? Lucas felt he might like that.</p><p> </p><p>When lunch was over, off the four of them went, Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews, Shawn and Mr. Feeny. And there and then Maya came alive again, hooking her arm with Riley’s before turning to the five of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen up, Texans. You’re in for a ride, so don’t wander off course, just follow Miss Matthews and I and you’ll be just fine. I’m Miss Hart, and this is New York. Now let’s go!” And they were off.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0196"><h2>196. Their Journey to Reunions & Meetings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d started to believe, foolishly, that she could have forgotten. What if after so long away she didn’t know where to go anymore? She had left her city, it could have left her, too, abandoned as it had been. But now here she was, and it was like finding an old pair of shoes that still fit. You put them on, and it was like all its life and adventure was still inside, clinging to you like a second skin.</p><p> </p><p>She was home… or she wasn’t… Texas, Austin, that was her home now, and happily so, but… Was it possible for someone to have two homes? It had to be, right? Riley’s parents had called New York home, but then just yesterday they’d all gone to Philadelphia, and that was home, too… So, she <em>was</em> home, one of her two, this one the first, the original. With this decided, it felt as though she really could breathe more easily.</p><p> </p><p>They were to meet their anxious friends over at their school. Maya had never actually set foot in Einstein Academy before, but she knew where it was and how to get there, so off they went. She and Riley were both caught up in a bit of a collision of emotions she guessed would have been mostly the same. There were the feelings of being back in New York, and those of being there with their Texan friends – they seemed to stand out, being here – and there were those feelings of being on their way to see faces they had only seen on screens for far too long. It would be enough to lead anyone to distraction, and certainly Riley fell victim to this, but Maya stayed the course, guiding them onward.</p><p> </p><p>When they reached the building, Einstein Academy felt massive. <em>This</em> was their school? Some thought it was a museum… or a palace… Seeing boys and girls in uniform roaming about, they felt just slightly underdressed. Maya looked at the boys, saw them try and make their clothes look a bit more proper, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or roll her eyes, so she did neither.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are we supposed to meet them?” Zay asked as they went in.</p><p> </p><p>“Why are you whispering?” Nadine asked. He shrugged, like it only seemed appropriate, under these circumstances. “Just talk normal, Tall Z,” she smiled, and he smiled back, in that way he had, letting her know he thought she shone brighter than the sun and stars.</p><p> </p><p>“They said they’d be in the auditorium,” Riley reminded them, so off they went, following arrows on the walls wherever they were told to turn. It was starting to feel less like a museum now and more like a maze.</p><p> </p><p>“Aren’t they going to say anything about us being here?” Lucas asked. They did sort of stick out, didn’t they? A sea of green jackets could have swallowed them whole at any second.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s an open house policy for the rest of the week on account of the event,” a voice spoke from behind Maya, and for about two seconds it didn’t register with her that it really was who she thought it was, and that she was really standing that close to him after so long, when he sounded just the same. It was only once she actually turned around and stood face to face with him that she could see how much he <em>had</em> changed. Was this tall smiling boy really her…</p><p> </p><p>“Farkle!” It <em>was</em> him! She had him in her arms in a second, and the surprise left him soon enough as she felt him hug her back. As much as she’d believed she’d missed him, like with Riley, having him right there in front of her made her see she’d been fooling herself, the better not to feel it too deeply. But now he <em>was</em> there, so it was safe to let herself feel it and admit she’d missed him more than she’d claimed. “The green looks good on you,” she said as she pulled back, brushing at his jacket with some pride. In the next moment, Riley had her go of hugging him, their dear friend who’d been there after Maya had gone.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello,” said the girl who’d been standing behind Farkle, and, looking at her, Maya couldn’t help but smile. Isadora Smackle had so long been only an image on a screen, and now she was real, a composure about her that might have been intimidating if she hadn’t spoken with her as often as she did. The bespectacled girl, with her dark hair in a neat braid sitting over her shoulder, was somewhere between a stranger and a dear friend. But Maya was also aware of her difficulties with certain interactions and contact, and she hesitated as to how she might greet her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Smackle, I…” Maybe she’d picked up on her conundrum, because before Maya was able to go on, Smackle had reached out for what could only be described as a mechanically uncertain hold. So, Maya took her cue, closing her arms just so, and not drawing it out longer than the other girl felt at ease to do. Still, when she pulled back, she gave the girl a smile. “I’m really glad to finally see you in person.”</p><p> </p><p>“As am I,” Smackle declared, before looking around at the small group with a slight frown that Maya interpreted as her wondering if she’d have to hug all of them now. “That goes for all of you,” she went on, and that was that. No more hugs today.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe you all actually came,” Farkle said, looking to the five he’d been getting to know over the past few months. Maya knew he had difficulty seeing how they might have accepted him as a friend the way both she and Riley would insist that they had. She also knew it was to be sort of expected with him, this flare of insecurity. She had it firmly in her intentions to let these two days cure him of that. By the time they all went back to Texas, Farkle Minkus would be confirmed in his hold of these faraway friends.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, we did,” Lucas told him with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“And not just to see New York,” Zay added, causing Nadine to debate whether or not she wanted to smack him. She decided against it.</p><p> </p><p>“Dude, your school looks like a museum,” Dylan told him with an awed sort of grin.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s your leg doing?” Farkle asked him. He’d heard all about the New Year’s Eve incident. Dylan told him how he mostly felt fine, only having issues with the cast and crutches really. When he asked if he wanted to write on his cast, Farkle said he would love to. The offer extended to Smackle, she briefly wondered aloud what the point would be in the end, but eventually she had decided that yes, she would like to do it, too.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was having trouble participating in this exchange, feeling more prone to simply stand back and watch. She remembered dreaming of all of them meeting, and she remembered how it had felt when they’d had their first video call, seven on one side and two on the other… But now here they all were, standing in the middle of a hall in Einstein Academy, as Farkle Minkus signed Dylan Orlando’s cast, while Isadora Smackle chatted about the upcoming event with Asher Garcia. It still felt like at any moment she would wake up, back in her bed in Austin, because there was no way this was real.</p><p> </p><p>Soon it would be normal, it had to be, like anything. She would adjust. Just being back in New York already had her in this dazed sort of state, so to have friends both new and old coming together was bound to get caught up in that.</p><p> </p><p>They would spend a little while more at the school, with Farkle and Smackle, being shown around, before the van came to collect them. They were to spend the next two nights at Farkle’s home, which he assured them would be plenty big enough for all of them. The others didn’t understand that the girls hadn’t been there before, but they’d believe it once they had the same reaction to it the rest of them did.</p><p> </p><p>While the rest of them were taken with all the objects they discovered around the place, Maya was really taken by only one thing, and it was the window, and the view of New York that it provided her. The city was all there in front of her, welcoming her back.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0197"><h2>197. Their Moment to Run</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Silence reigned about the rooms where they had all been sleeping, at the Minkus home, but not all were asleep. One little blonde was up, even as the sun had yet to fully rise on New York City. From bed to bed she went in her room, to Riley Matthews and Nadine Zhu, even to Isadora Smackle who, rather than being odd one out, had decided to join them in these two nights. The offer she made to the three, in conspiratorial whispers, was accepted by one, and as Nadine rose to get dressed, Maya Hart wandered into the boys’ room.</p><p> </p><p>There they all were, sprawled about the room of Farkle Minkus, as the boy himself seemed to hold the center, as to his right had been placed beds for Dylan Orlando and Asher Garcia, and to his left for Zay Babineaux and Lucas Friar. They all slept, and it was near to impossible for Maya to hold her tongue and not make a great thunderous sort of wake-up call, sending the five of them out of sleep with a startling jump. But she resisted, instead passing from one bed to the other as she had done before.</p><p> </p><p>Dylan and Asher said no, though more regretfully on Dylan’s part. Farkle had said he couldn’t, once he’d recovered from waking up to Maya Hart standing next to his bed. Zay had hesitated, only to change his tune once he heard that Nadine was in. He got up to get ready, as Maya turned to her last candidate.</p><p> </p><p>She’d never really seen him like this. They’d had a handful of sleepovers or two over time, but he’d always been in the basement, or Auggie’s room, or just somewhere else, not where she could observe him as he slept. She guessed it wasn’t weird, not unless she stood there and kept watching him too long… Still there was something about seeing him lying there, curled around his pillow, hair a mess… Would it have been too much to reach out and just brush it back carefully for him?</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, shaking herself out of this odd bit of hypnosis she seemed to have put herself under. She crouched next to his bed, carefully gave his shoulder a tap or two until he stirred, and his eyes cracked open. She held a finger to her lips, inciting him to stay quiet.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to come and see the city with me?” she whispered, then, for fear of being misinterpreted, “Nadine’s coming, too, and Zay. The others said no.” Lucas blinked, looking around for a moment before turning back to her. His eyes seemed to ask, ‘what time is it?’ “Early,” was the answer she gave him. He rolled on to his back, looking as though he was considering things for a moment. Finally, he sat up. That was all the answer she needed. “I’ll let you get ready. I’ll be out waiting in the hall.”</p><p> </p><p>Standing in wait as she did, Maya did consider that she might need to tell the others, Shawn mostly. But then why would she have to? Not two years ago she’d be up and about so early, off to get Riley and head to school, walking this city all on her own. She was older now, what did she need to do any different?</p><p> </p><p>And besides, she needed this. She needed to have this morning, to be the girl she’d been here again. She’d grown, she’d changed, but she was still a part of this place, and she needed to live as though she was, even if only in this small moment, before she went back to Texas. If it had taken this long for her to even make it for this first visit, who knew how long it would be before she got to come back?</p><p> </p><p>The truth was, when she had first decided she wanted to do this, she had planned to go on her own, and then almost just as quick she had planned on asking Lucas to come along, and only him. She could have wanted to take Riley, but then this quiet excursion of hers felt like the tag on events she hadn’t been part of. That was hardly her fault, but it remained the truth. But Lucas, he’d been right in the thick of it, constant guide, companion and confidant, and if she would have someone there with her, she’d want it to be him.</p><p> </p><p>Like so many times before though, there’d been the thought toying at the back of her mind. She was wise enough to understand what it might sound like, considering what they were dealing with, him and her, this quiet dance they’d been having. So, against her initial wishes, she had opened the offer to each of her friends. Did a part of her hope to be denied by the rest of them? Maybe a little.</p><p> </p><p>But she was glad to have Nadine come along, and maybe Zay more so, him of the Grounded Privilege… Still none of the other answers had been better met than when Lucas had agreed to follow.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t have any particular plan or itinerary. She was just going to walk through her city in the early morning hours, see where it took her. She was far from the exact spot she usually walked by back in the day, but she didn’t mind it. This was her city, and she felt it in her, she did…</p><p> </p><p>She still had something at the back of her mind though, a nagging sort of fear that wouldn’t be silenced. She’d wanted to be here, and now she <em>was</em> here, but what would happen next? Would she return to Texas feeling the relief of a visit back to her first home, or would she return, feeling as lost as she’d ever felt?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0198"><h2>198. Their Moment to Discover</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas and Zay and Nadine had emerged from their rooms before long, the looks on their faces showing three eager participants ready to follow her on this morning escape through New York. Maya welcomed them with a conspiratorial smile; they were off. They skulked quietly out of the building as everyone slept on but them.</p><p> </p><p>When the doors opened before them with a cool breeze, Maya took a moment to stand there, to breathe in before they could go on.</p><p> </p><p>In very little time, though she didn’t know it in the beginning, she would come to wonder if she’d packed too much pressure on to this day, this moment, trying to make it into something, trying to make it be something it couldn’t be. She hadn’t felt it, not at first, but then maybe that was just… what… trying to hold on to that belief? What for?</p><p> </p><p>It <em>had</em> all seemed absolutely wonderful at first. How could it not? Morning in New York was her favorite time and place. It was cold, colder than she’d had to live in for some time, but then she did remember growing up in that cold, didn’t she? This was nothing. She’d had worse colds… she’d had worse coats. The rest of them didn’t seem to notice or mind it, except maybe to note it like some attraction that came available to them in virtue of this January trip they’d taken. It didn’t call back memories for them the way it did for her. But it was just a passing sort of thought, and she let it pass.</p><p> </p><p>They took off, the four of them, keeping a fairly casual pace as they went. It wasn’t about seeing the sights, not about being tourists. If anything, it was an experience of the opposite, of residence. The best part, as she saw it, was that the others did seem to understand it, to appreciate it. They were walking with her as though they belonged to this place, just as she’d done… once…</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t kept track of how long or how far they had gone really, but then at one time she did have to stop and look around, to situate herself again. How much longer would they have to go for her to show them her old neighborhood, her old home? <em>Did</em> she want to show it to them? She’d already told them all about her old world, but would it change something for them to see it? She’d never felt herself to carry any sort of shame about it all, but here and now, having to consider showing it to them, she’d been taken with this unexpected feeling in her heart, like fear, like doubt, just… She didn’t want to take them there.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyone else hungry?” Zay asked, and they’d just smiled at him. Of course, he’d be the one to say it first.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a diner over there, look,” Lucas pointed, and Maya knew what she’d see when she’d turn to follow that finger. The Nighthawk Diner, her mother’s old workplace… She had to tell them; she didn’t see the staff having changed so much in under two years, so someone was bound to recognize her in there.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, can we go?” Nadine had eagerly asked, and Maya had nodded. It might do her good, no?</p><p> </p><p>They walked through those doors, and it felt so little like time had passed that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see her mother step in from the back, uniform and all. Katy Hart was all the way back in Texas that morning though. But still the woman who came through in that moment came to a stop when she saw…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” came an incredulous call, but when the girl saw the woman and gave a smile, the woman’s uncertainty settled into joyous certainty. “What are you doing here? Oh, come here…” she moved up and took her into her arms. “Look at you, my goodness, when did you get so big?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, still feel pretty short down here,” Maya commented, mid hug. She could have stayed this way for hours. “It’s good to see you again, April,” she told her as they finally pulled away and could look at each other. “Can we…” she indicated the counter.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh sure, come, sit, grab a menu,” April the waitress led the group to take a seat on a row of stools. “Who do we have here?”</p><p> </p><p>“These are some of my friends from Austin, we’re here for a couple days, that’s Lucas, and Nadine, and Zay,” she indicated to each of them sat to her left. “Guys, this is April, I’ve known her since I was a kid.”</p><p> </p><p>“Here I thought you were still a kid,” April laughed. “But look at you, still can’t get over it. You kids order whatever you want, it’s on me.” They thanked her as she stepped off to go and tend to her tables and started to look at the menus.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked at the one she held, touched the scratch she found in one corner… she remembered it, she’d held this very one before… It was the most at home she’d felt since the day before, and then there it was, the realization that nothing until then had felt the way she had thought it would. Even this, it was the closest she’d come, and she didn’t think she’d come any closer. It seemed as though her old world had shrunk down to this, to this diner where her mother had worked so hard all along. She’d never missed her so much.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0199"><h2>199. Their Moment to Wait</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they’d sat there at the counter, Lucas had been sort of looking around despite himself. All he could think about was how this place was a part of Maya’s life, Maya’s past. How many times must she have sat here over the years? This kind of made the diner gain a sort of mythical standing for him.</p><p> </p><p>The food they had ordered had been brought to them by the enthusiastic waitress, who just lit up every time she’d come back to stand across the counter from Maya. She would ask how things were in Texas, how her mother was doing… Maya replied to each of those questions, sounding halfway glad to share and halfway wishing she didn’t have to, but she did it anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had been quietly following the development of… some kind of reaction growing in the girl sat to his right. He’d been sensing something even as they’d walked, an aimlessness that felt almost guided, like she’d been subconsciously carried here. And then they <em>had</em> come inside, and he’d watched the effect grow. And then the food had come, and they’d started to eat, and she looked… Well, he could just about guarantee there were tears in her, whether or not they would ever be allowed to surface and be seen.</p><p> </p><p>The conversation had just sort of carried on around them throughout all this, Zay and Nadine oblivious to what was happening, maybe because he was sitting between them and Maya. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Hearing them talk, Maya would talk back, giving enough of herself to seem as though all was well.</p><p> </p><p>And then their phones had started to beep and chirp and vibrate, and they already knew what it meant before they even saw the messages. The others had written to them, saying that Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews and Shawn knew they were gone, and they were looking for them, and they didn’t look entirely pleased, so maybe they had better return as quick as they could.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s it then,” Nadine sighed, moving to stand. Zay watched her do this and responded by turning back to his place to shovel through what was left of his waffles and bacon.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas turned to Maya, and one look at her, in a split second, made him turn back to the others and tell them to go on ahead without them, that they’d catch up. Maya, she just looked too much to him like that night when she’d tried to make her run for New York. It might not have been anything so drastic, but after the last time, he wasn’t taking any chances. He wasn’t abandoning her.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but they don’t know the way back,” Maya shook her head, but Nadine claimed that she did, and added that she could just use her phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, if you’re staying, I’m staying,” Zay made to sit, but then he looked at Lucas, at Maya, and maybe he saw what his best friend had seen, because he looked back at him, and he stood again. “Okay, let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas knew it was what he needed to do when they watched Zay and Nadine head out and Maya had still made no attempt to get up and go with them, to return to Farkle’s. He wondered if she would have told all three of them to go without her if he hadn’t sided himself with her and sent the others before she could.</p><p> </p><p>Once they were gone, there was a beat where neither of them spoke or tried to speak. They’d turned back to their plates, working through what little was left on them. April stopped by, asking where their friends had gone, and Lucas said they’d been done and wanted to go check out something. April understood this as the kids from Texas wanting to take in the city and she left them with a few spots to see while they were here, promising they’d have a great guide with Maya around.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” Maya finally spoke after April had gone. Her voice had let nothing show before, when Zay and Nadine or April were around, but now that they were gone and it was just them, it changed, showed what he’d felt had been underneath all along.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, I did. Where else would I be?” It was as simple as that where he was concerned. He didn’t even have to think about it at all. It wouldn’t have been right to respond in any other way. When something would come along to tap into that part of her heart that would grow afflicted – and he knew that those moments had a way of finding her – he couldn’t do anything but stick by her until that feeling would recede from her.</p><p> </p><p>He waited now, looking at her as she seemed to consider how to respond, to agree on his remaining or insist that she’d be alright – like she’d told him she was fine when she’d sent him away only to make for the train station though?</p><p> </p><p>But when she replied, it was with a quiet ‘thanks,’ and he smiled, just a bit relieved.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s going on, Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0200"><h2>200. Their Moment to Breathe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She would still wonder sometimes what her life might have been like, not just if he hadn’t been there but simply if he hadn’t held the place, he did hold in it. Right now, all she knew was that she was glad to have him, sitting next to her as her world felt a little unsteady again.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know… I don’t know what I was expecting. I thought about being back here for so long, I guess I made up my mind that it would be one way, but really, it’s not. And now that it’s not, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, how to make myself be okay with it.”</p><p> </p><p>They were quiet a while. She picked at tiny specks of pancake and syrup on her plate, while he stared seemingly into nothing, just thinking.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, when I had to go back to school, last year, I had been away for a while, and then I had to come back and be the kid who got suspended and had to start over with kids a year younger. And at first, the pressure was a lot more than I thought it would be, some days I just… didn’t want to go, didn’t want to have to go through that again. But I did, and after a while, it was just… I got to a place where it was good.”</p><p> </p><p>Whether he would point out the part she’d played in this or if he’d trust that she would understand…</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think I can do all that by tomorrow night. And if we leave here with me still feeling like that, then… I don’t want it to stay like that, I don’t want to dread being here, I don’t want to… lose New York.”</p><p> </p><p>“You could never,” Lucas insisted. “It’s in you, as much as me being… Huckleberry.” The name had the power to make him smile, most times, and it seemed it went both ways, as it got her smiling… which in turn returned on to him. “Just… clear away the expectations, start fresh.”</p><p> </p><p>“Blank canvas,” she suggested, and he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean we’re in New York, Maya, that’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?” he asked, turning up a bit of jolliness that had her laughing. “Too much?”</p><p> </p><p>“Little bit, but appreciated,” she promised, and he settled back down still with his smile. “It <em>is</em> one of the best cities to be in, isn’t it?” Against all odds, Austin had become one of those, too. Whether she would point out the part he’d played in this…</p><p> </p><p>It was good to see her start to relax, to breathe. He more than understood by now how she could find herself back in these pits of despair, but every one needed escaping from, not a rescue; she could get herself out, all he had to do was alleviate the fear that clouded her way.</p><p> </p><p>Still she didn’t seem ready to leave the diner. He knew she remembered the messages they’d gotten as she stared at her phone on the counter, but she made no move.</p><p> </p><p>“We can stay here as long as you need,” he promised, and for a moment she reached across the inches of counter to rest her hand on his in gratitude. And for that moment, he would have gladly grasped on and held that delicate hand in his, but he knew it was only a small touch, a silent thanks, as she pulled it back, and he replied to it with a nod to her. She was welcome, always.</p><p> </p><p>April came back around, asked if they wanted anything else. Maya asked for a hot chocolate, and Lucas thought that sounded good, so he asked for one, too. They were staking their claim to remaining here, despite the summons back to Farkle’s. They were neither of them ready to go.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been trying to privately put Lucas’ advice into play. It was so easy to visualize herself, walking around with a stack of expectations piled so high in her arms that she couldn’t see past it, couldn’t see the city. Sometimes she’d thought she did, but it was merely a glance around the stack. She had to set it all down and walk away from it. She was in her city, her hometown… That had to be enough. And as she sat there, with him, counting marshmallows in his cup and hers, maybe it really was.</p><p> </p><p>“Hold on, I think we can fit five more,” she declared; April had left her the bag.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s going to be all marshmallow soon,” Lucas estimated.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” she laughed. He wasn’t about to stop her; he sat and watched her stack mini little bits of white fluff high over his hot chocolate, with a new determination that felt intensely compelling.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, look out,” he reached out as the last one made the mountain fall and several marshmallows toppled on to the counter. “Alright, now let’s see how high I can go,” he challenged, holding out his hand for the bag, which she handed over.</p><p> </p><p>“Easy there, Huckleberry, I happen to be a pro.” There was that smile on her again, inevitable. They were out of that pit now, he hoped, and he would do all he could to keep her away from it again, while they remained here.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0201"><h2>201. Their Moment to Live</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a little while there, they seemed isolated from the touch of reality. Here there were no more worries about the things that may have been lacking from the world, the things that were broken, or twisted… They were not concerned with where they were, or where they were supposed to be at that very moment. The only things they seemed to see and be aware of were each other, and the city outside the window. Morning was evolving right before their eyes, advancing on, though it had not yet lost all of that shine, all that made it so magical a time for her.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how long they’d been staring out at it. All she knew was that after a while she realized they had moved, Lucas and her, from the counter to a booth by the window, still sat side by side only now with a better view. She looked at him, looking out there, and she knew he was getting it, everything she’d been telling him about this place, this time… She wished she had her sketchbook just now, or her camera.</p><p> </p><p>“If I say something about here, promise not to let it get you down again?” he asked when he saw her looking. She shrugged; she could only ever try. “I’m starting to get why you miss this place so much. I mean I know in the end it was the people that you missed most, Riley, and Farkle, and all those, but we’re here now and…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she smiled, maybe of relief that she had <em>not</em> ‘let it get her down.’ “There are so many things I want to show you right now, but… I’d want to show the others, too, and besides… I kind of don’t want to leave here yet,” she admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“Then we stay,” he nodded, in all simplicity, and she could only smile again.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I used to sit in this booth for hours while my mother worked here. It had the best view.” When he asked if it was really this exact booth, she smirked and told him to look under the table, on the wall. She could point to it without looking.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he frowned, suspicious of his maybe falling for a trick, like she’d make a noise, and he’d jump and bump his head. Instead, he looked where she told him to, and she found just what she must have wanted him to see. There, carved clumsily, low on the wall, four letters: MAYA. When he sat back up, she still had that smirk on.</p><p> </p><p>“I did that when I was… eight, I think. My mother never saw, and I was so proud, I didn’t tell anyone, not even Riley. But then she did find out about two years later, and so did my Mom, when one of the other waitresses – actually, I think it was April – saw it there and showed her. I tried to lie and say it wasn’t me, that it was another Maya, who just happened to sit in that booth. She didn’t buy it, so I got punished for something I’d done two years before.”</p><p> </p><p>His response, as well as his laugh, was to note that at least her mark was still there… She would always know that she’d been here; everyone would know. She liked the sound of that. As a joke, mostly, she suggested he might go and put <em>his</em> name down there, too, to commemorate his passage here, in this booth, this diner and this city.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he said, not seeing it as a joke, and suddenly it wasn’t. Suddenly they were looking around like thieves on the prowl. He nodded to the other side of the booth and moved to sit there. A moment later she followed and again sat next to him, ‘as cover.’</p><p> </p><p>As covert as he could, he took a knife from the table and reached under, carving blind. Though they would get out of this unseen, and it would be – unbeknownst to them – a solid three years before anyone saw it but them, there was all through those next minutes the concern that at any moment they would get busted. What if they were sent to jail? What if they got kicked out of the city, kicked out of school back home?</p><p> </p><p>But one by one the five letters were carved, and when Lucas declared he was done, setting the knife back down, Maya took a peek under the table to see his handiwork. Not too far from her own childish letters were his own, their names side by side, like they were. She smiled, taking a picture with her phone. Then right as she moved up to show him, she did just what he’d been afraid would happen to him, bumping her head on the table.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay? Maya?” he asked at once, while she sat up, groaning, and reaching to the back of her head. “Here, let me see,” he turned sideways in his seat and reached out, too, so she let her hands down and turned and bowed her head, letting the blond curls cascade before her. When she felt his hands there, carefully inspecting the back of her head, it wasn’t pain that made her startle, though there was that, too. “Doesn’t seem too bad,” he declared.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’ll be fine,” she winced, looking back up at him.</p><p> </p><p>Silence held for a moment as they sat there, still with him holding her head in his hands, which meant he was much closer to her than he had been. It was to wonder who would blink first, but they both did, at the same time, before he let go and they sat there, uncertain.</p><p> </p><p>“Are we ever going to talk about this?” he asked, and she looked back at him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0202"><h2>202. Their Moment to Grow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They couldn’t keep pretending like ‘this’ didn’t exist forever, she knew, and still when he actually said it, Maya couldn’t help but feel a jolt. Was it the first time either of them actually brought it up, no talking in codes, being covert, nothing, except to state the fact that there <em>was</em> something going on?</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him, sitting there next to her but also turned toward her. She looked, stared really… She didn’t know what to say. How could she even begin to explain what was going on in her head without it coming out all wrong and wrecking things for them? She didn’t want that to happen, and she had to assume that he didn’t either. But she had to say something, didn’t she? If she just sat there and didn’t say anything, wouldn’t that be just as bad in the end?</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him, and she felt that she saw some of that feeling in him, too. But then he’d been the one to brave the uncertain and open the subject, planting it at her feet. He had more power in him to be brave about something like this, she guessed. Wasn’t that a good sign?</p><p> </p><p>She sat there, and in her head, she could just almost hear herself say it, subtleties removed. She liked him, and if they became more than friends, that might be the best thing she could want. She liked him so much… She could still feel his hands when they had been on the back of her head, and how fast her heart had been beating.</p><p> </p><p>In her head she could be as eloquent as she wanted, but as intuitive as Lucas could be, she didn’t think he could read her thoughts just yet, and until he developed <em>that</em> ability, she would have to do her talking the old fashioned way… and that was sort of where the problem grew.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t get the words out. They stacked up at the top of the chute, refusing to slide down and be heard. She thought she must have looked so ridiculous, just looking at him, not saying anything, and finally she had to sigh and turn her head down.</p><p> </p><p>“Does it still hurt?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Little bit,” she admitted. It wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? It <em>did</em> still hurt a bit, even though it hadn’t been the reason she had bowed her head. She looked back up. She’d spoken now, so maybe it would be easier? But no… the words still stopped, and she sighed again.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not dizzy, are you? Do you feel sick? Sleepy?” he continued to inquire, and it really should not have made her smile to see him so concerned, but there it was, and maybe it was the right response after all, because it did sort of calm him down.</p><p> </p><p>“Wasn’t that big of a hit, okay? I’m fine, I just…”</p><p> </p><p>“You can’t do it, can you?” he asked, and she looked at him, giving one more desperate attempt to unload the words in her head.</p><p> </p><p>“I… I want to… but I don’t… know how,” she finally managed to say, and this on its own already felt like a bit of a victory. It might not have been the one she’d meant to have, but it was a start, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him to see how her opening had fared, and she found him looking at her sort of relieved; he didn’t know it any more than she did. That seemed to make some things easier, though really it felt to her as though it all boiled down to a familiar conclusion to her: what she wanted sort of clashed with the self-preservation instincts that had kept her world as balanced as she could hope to keep it all her life, and she was not yet capable of… rocking the boat.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how either,” he finally replied. “There’s so much I want to say, but… I can’t…”</p><p> </p><p>She smiled at this, a familiarity to the sentiment rising from her, and she nodded in understanding, while her hands did something that soon felt a rogue sort of rebellion from the blockade in her mind. Those hands of hers went and took hold of his, the hands that had so carefully inspected her head after she’d so clumsily bumped it under the table. For the moment before she realized what she was doing, all she could do was recall… running through a museum, his hand in hers… sitting in her bay window, crying, and his arms closing around her… the bus… oh, the bus…</p><p> </p><p>When she felt his hands grip back in her own, she came back to herself, looked at him. He was looking at their hands, too, and she couldn’t say just what was going through <em>his</em> mind any more than he could hers, but she didn’t have to hear those thoughts word for word to know he’d be just about where she was. They didn’t always need the words, him and her, did they?</p><p> </p><p>There was no booth just then, no diner… maybe not even New York… All she saw was him, as <em>he</em> saw <em>her</em>. When he’d looked back up at her, it felt like the world had gone away, and she didn’t know how to miss it, not when this boy was looking back at her the way he did, and all she could think of were his eyes, at first, and then how it seemed they were getting closer, and she didn’t know if it was because he was leaning toward her or she was leaning toward him. And then she couldn’t even <em>see</em> his eyes anymore, because she’d closed hers, a moment before she felt his face just there, warm like hers, and then… and then… When his lips touched hers, she trembled just a bit, but she didn’t back down, no… She had joined the rebellion.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0203"><h2>203. Their Moment to Move</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was such a thing as timing, as she discovered that day. When it would all be said and done, she would be left to wonder how any slight difference would have made for any great difference. What if the door to the diner had opened earlier by seconds, later by seconds?</p><p> </p><p>This kiss had lasted all of seconds really, though they seemed to exist to her in a space untouched by time or reality. There had been no time, as it was happening, for her to stop and think about what it might mean for him and her, for the future, and what they would decide to do. When they’d pulled away, opened their eyes again, there was that sort of grace period, where they still existed in the cloud of what they’d just done, and when that cloud would clear, then they could try and make sense of it all. When it would clear…</p><p> </p><p>Only in that exact moment the diner door opened, and Maya didn’t have any idea how she knew who it was, but she pulled her hands away and on to the table just before…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” She turned in the booth, hoping very much that her face wasn’t flushed as she spotted a halfway frantic Shawn Hunter standing there, scanning the room. When his eyes fell on her, he had a brief allowance of relief, just before his face took on a more disciplinarian frown. “You do understand how your mother’s put you in my care while we’re out here, right? And if anything happened to you, it’s on me.” He was making sense, yes, but she also knew that deep down, or maybe closer to the surface really, he’d only been worried about her, not his duty. She didn’t think he even <em>saw</em> Lucas until they stood to follow him back to Farkle’s, each with sound apologies. Maybe later she would explain how she’d come to be there, but right then it would likely have fallen on deaf ears, still coming off concern she might have really managed to disappear this time.</p><p> </p><p>Later, along with wondering what might have happened if Shawn hadn’t come through the door at the exact moment that he did, she would also be left to wonder what would have happened if he’d come in shortly before and found her kissing the tall boy who, for now, merely attempted to make himself short. Maya had always just kind of rolled her eyes at Lucas’ sort of fear around Shawn, but now she thought it may have been the wisest approach. It spoke of some assumptions on everyone’s parts, that had been going on a while, even before today, and not all of them were unpleasant.</p><p> </p><p>But she couldn’t think about any of that, not at the moment. Without explanations or excuses demanded or given, Maya and Lucas had been returned to the reality of an early morning escapade turned not so early, where they had snuck out on their own at first, and then ignored requests to return once they had been discovered. Maya wondered if Zay and Nadine had made it before Shawn went looking for her, but then they must have been the ones to reveal where she and Lucas were.</p><p> </p><p>Now as they made their silent return, she honestly hoped she had not ruined Farkle and Smackle’s big day, or gotten her friends in trouble… None of that had been her intention at all. She was just so caught up with everything, and she was realizing how much it mattered to her now, which wasn’t to say it wouldn’t have mattered before, but she just might not have understood or felt it in the same way.</p><p> </p><p>She finally managed to look at Lucas as they walked, where two things could be said to have happened. For the one thing, it could be said that looking at him right now instantly took her back to that moment, that kiss. Her first… She couldn’t forget the way it had all felt. When she had closed her eyes, it had still felt like she could see everything somehow. His face, warm near hers, the slightest pause and then the choice, the move. And then his hands, in hers all along… As he’d kissed her, she could feel those hands, a tremor, but also a hold that seemed to say… ‘I’m here, finally, I’m here.’ Had it all really happened in so few little seconds?</p><p> </p><p>The other thing she saw as she looked at him was that he wasn’t looking back at her. It felt sort of deliberate, and she assumed this was again his trying to play it cool with Shawn there, escorting them back to Farkle’s. Only now there had been this kiss between them, and it opened up a host of new doors in her head, as though she needed any more reasons to worry herself over. What if he’d been spooked, what if he had changed his mind and he didn’t…</p><p> </p><p>No. No, she refused to go down that route. She didn’t have to let it happen and she wasn’t going to. This was merely a small set back, and once they had some time to themselves; they could sort everything out.</p><p> </p><p>Except…</p><p> </p><p>Except she was still sort of scared inside, about taking those steps and failing, about moving forward with him and risking that they could fall apart, and she could lose him. Suddenly the rebellion didn’t feel so… rebellious, it felt dangerous. And now they’d kissed, and oh… what if it was too late? What if she’d already set a counter on their self-destruct sequence?</p><p> </p><p>But what was she supposed to do, just say no? Wouldn’t that be just what speeded up the process and made them explode? The alternative to this wasn’t much better, was it? To take the leap and then risk making the pain get that much bigger when it would reach its end? Wasn’t it safer not to go down that route just yet? She could not stand to hurt him, even more than she could ever be concerned over her own happiness or unhappiness. But then what if she put a hold on all this and ended up leading him away, sacrificing one chance to be revealed in time as her only one?</p><p> </p><p>If Shawn hadn’t come when he’d come… They might have let themselves get carried away by the moment, decide right then and there that they had made their start. Now…</p><p> </p><p>When they reached Farkle’s home, they were greeted by their friends, those who’d stayed behind and those who’d come along, all looking like they were sorry they’d allowed them to get in trouble. They were greeted by Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews – relieved now that they could get the day back on track – and Mr. Feeny. The man may have been retired, but they only had to look at him to see he could still pull off the ‘I feel like I’ve been called into the principal’s office’ look. Both Maya and Lucas were earnest in their apologies for any concern they may have caused.</p><p> </p><p>Now Maya had brand new fears to concern herself over. There was no way, with all of them there, that this wouldn’t get back to Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar… and to her mother most of all. If Shawn had come in seconds earlier, would it have made things worse? Would the Friars, who had always been so kind and welcoming to her, suddenly cast her in the role of bad influence? Would her mother, who had been so good after the aborted run to New York, feel that this incident was a betrayal of that extended trust? Maya had vowed she would never disappear on her again, and as much as she herself did not necessarily view it as such in this case, her mother might not see it so innocently.</p><p> </p><p>It soon became clear also that they would all have to agree to set the incident aside for the time being. Today was about Farkle, and Smackle, and the rest of their classmates, and so they had to focus on that. It was the whole reason they had been pulled into this cross country trip, out of school and work for days, and they were not about to let it all go to waste because of their skipping out for a morning walk that had gone on too long.</p><p> </p><p>Still, there was a part of her that could not, would not feel guilty about this. She had waited so long to be here, and none of them could know what it had felt like, to come and have it feel the way it did. Lucas… Lucas knew, of course he did, and he had been there to see her through it. She was never going to feel bad for having needed a moment to sort herself out and actually taking that moment. And no matter what would happen from here on out, she was going to remember that kiss, hold it in her memories, preciously preserved. If ever came a day where she looked back on that moment with anything but pure joy, then all would truly be lost.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0204"><h2>204. Their Choice After An Escape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In what truly felt like no time at all, they were all standing inside the airport, saying goodbye to Farkle and Smackle, and to Shawn, as the rest of them were about to board a flight back to Austin. The day before, which had started so memorably, had come and gone, as had this day that followed, the whole thing a blur of activity that seemed to leave no space at all for any discussion of… things.</p><p> </p><p>The event at Einstein Academy had wrapped up beautifully, really, and both Maya and Riley, biased as they may well be, would crown Farkle and Smackle as its victors in an instant. That had been the spirit of those two days, right up until now. All along they had known very well that goodbyes would be approaching, unforgiving as always, but it was easy to ignore the eventuality while they were all having fun. Now, packing to leave, driving to the airport, all it could do was to force them to see the moment of parting was coming. Maya tried to be brave for Riley, who looked like the tiniest touch and tremor would start her crying. But then <em>she</em> had only been away from them for less than half a year, and she didn’t know what it was like to have a year and a half to make up for in so little time; Maya wished with all her heart that she’d never have to, because she knew how much it hurt. She <em>tried</em> to be brave, but it was made that much more difficult by the nagging fear that she might be in for another stretch like this, if not longer. Then…</p><p> </p><p>“I asked my father if we could go to Austin this summer,” Farkle revealed, “He said he didn’t know if he could get away from the company right now, but he’d be willing to let me go, and Smackle’s parents said the same. We could spend the summer with all of you and…”</p><p> </p><p>Maya needed to hear no more, pulling Farkle into her arms, feeling that no matter what the next few months might hold, if she had <em>this</em> to look forward to, then she could get through absolutely anything. When Smackle came to her next to say her goodbyes, Maya imagined her in Texas and could only smile.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going to want to hug me now, aren’t you?” Smackle asked, and Maya nodded. “Alright, then go for it,” the girl permitted. “Not too tight.”</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t do anything you wouldn’t, Isadora,” Maya vowed. She already had it figured out in her head, she could stay with her mom and her over the summer, and Farkle could stay with the Friars… That seemed the soundest choice, as reckless as this planning ahead might once have felt.</p><p> </p><p>When her last goodbye came, in the form of Shawn Hunter, Maya knew her last shred of bravery was about to leave her. As hard as it was to say goodbye to her friends, when it had been so much longer since she’d seen them, it got to feeling like every time she parted from Shawn it only got harder. She hated this part now, truly hated it, which made submitting to this parting that much harder. She couldn’t even get herself to look him in the face as he came up to her, and Shawn finally had to stop her by the shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, come on now, look at me for a second,” he begged. Reluctantly, she did so, afraid she would burst as soon as she did, but then she soon discovered he had been fighting that same battle. When she saw it, she just slid into his arms and he held her near, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. He hated to let her go as much as she did him.</p><p> </p><p>“When are you going to come back to Austin? Any other photo assignments?” she asked, sniffling into his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, I think we’re both old enough now to admit there was never any assignment, don’t you?” She laughed, nodded. “This summer, for sure,” he promised, “If not earlier.” Summer was looking more and more like the time to be in.</p><p> </p><p>There were no more goodbyes to be had now. They would have to go and board their plane at any moment. Maya resumed her place at Riley’s side, finding she’d had a rough go of these goodbyes, too, and Maya took her hand in hers. She had her; Riley smiled at her, with gratitude in her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>As they moved forward, Maya knew there would be an image of those three beloved faces in her travel sketches. She’d gotten the little book the day before, had been filling it with little snippets of time in a plain old pencil ever since.</p><p> </p><p>They were soon packed into their seats, the seven friends in one place, while Cory and Topanga had gone to first class, a brief escape for the two of them, which was in no way lamented by the kids, who looked forward to this flight with just the seven of them.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had one end of the line, as they were spread, her and Riley by one window, Zay and Nadine by the other, and Dylan, Asher, and Lucas in the middle. She was on the aisle, and so was he, right across from it. As they’d sat down, buckled in, it felt like the first real moment where they’d been able to stop, and breathe, in the last two days… the first real moment they were able to look at each other.</p><p> </p><p>They were distracted from this as announcements were made, informing them that they were about to take off. There would be no real way for them to talk now, not about… certain things. The best they would be able to do would be to stare across that divide, which would hardly feel like the best thing to do to resolve the unanswered questions that had been left lingering since the previous day’s morning in the diner.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0205"><h2>205. Their Choice After a Departure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was so hard to explain how the last two days had felt for him. He was in New York, with all his friends, and it was just so fascinating of a place to see with his own two eyes. This was a constant parade of ‘I’ve seen this place in this show!’ and ‘I’ve seen that thing in that movie!’ They had all taken so many pictures with their phones that it was bound to feel redundant when they went back through them.</p><p> </p><p>And then being there to be at Farkle and Smackle’s event had made it that much better. He had been able to get to know them better, and no discredit to Smackle, but he had been particularly enlightened as far as Farkle went. The boy had been someone he’d started conversing with over the months, and that had been great, but it had been that much better in person. Now there was a great chance both he and Smackle would come and spend the summer with them in Austin. If that did happen, then Lucas knew he would be more than happy to offer up his home and welcome Farkle into it for the duration of his stay in Texas.</p><p> </p><p>And they had all had a lot of fun, at the event yesterday, but even more so today, as they’d been free to go and do as they pleased, nine kids let loose in New York. Lucas might have worried that he or Maya would be kept back because of the events of yesterday morning, but they hadn’t. Maybe despite everything, none of their chaperones felt like keeping them away from this special opportunity.</p><p> </p><p>Yesterday morning… yesterday morning…</p><p> </p><p>Much as he had been an active part and participant in all the events of the last two days, there had been this thing in the back of his mind the whole time, and he could not have chased it off even if he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to.</p><p> </p><p>He had been replaying that moment in the diner in his mind over and over again. Not the kiss, or… well, not just the kiss, because <em>that</em>… Every time he remembered that had happened, it sent a sort of shock to his heart that made him take a deep breath like he needed to settle himself. How long he had wanted to do that, and it had happened, and it had been just… life changing. One more moment, after they had pulled apart, and he would have leaned in to kiss her again.</p><p> </p><p>But then in that split second before he’d been able to do it, her hands had left his, she’d just… yanked them away so fast, restored the space between them. For a second or two he had been left to wonder if he had misread the situation, if she had not wanted to kiss him, or be kissed by him, and it could have spread through his heart and mind so fast, laying waste, if in the next second he hadn’t seen why she’d done it: Shawn Hunter had walked in, they were busted.</p><p> </p><p>Surely by now Maya would assume he was scared of the guy, and the way he’d stayed quiet as they were led out of the diner would have done little to alter this assumption. But deep down he knew that wasn’t what it was, not exactly. Lucas knew how important the guy was to Maya, what he represented for her, and what Lucas was afraid of was not Shawn himself but rather the thought that he could leave a bad impression on him, which he realized must not have been helped by his clamming up the way he did whenever he was around, but it had to be better to be shy than to say anything that might be misconstrued. Even while they were walking back to Farkle’s, he wouldn’t let himself look at Maya, knowing if he did he wouldn’t know how to keep from smiling, and if Shawn saw this and asked him to explain what that was about…</p><p> </p><p>Since then, they really had no chance to talk just him and her for any needed amount of time. Yesterday there had been all the Einstein Academy stuff. And by the time they had gotten back to Farkle’s they were all so spent that they were quick to bed, especially knowing that the earlier they went to sleep, the earlier they could get up and get this day started, load it with memories, before they had to up and leave for the airport. That day really left little more chance for him and Maya to stop and talk, did it?</p><p> </p><p>Now though they had come to the most painful part of it, he felt. They were on the plane, sat on either side of an aisle. They had this whole flight ahead of them, none of them going anywhere. But what were they supposed to do really? Just start talking, there among their friends, about how they’d kissed the day before, and the big question of what it would mean for them? They hadn’t said anything yet, and <em>he</em> wouldn’t say, not unless he knew <em>she </em>was okay with them saying.</p><p> </p><p>The longer time went by with the subject unspoken though, he just had to wonder. He didn’t really know, did he? He had let relief take him, when Shawn had come into the diner, that his second’s worry had been unfounded, and Maya had been alright with their kiss. But what if he’d had it right at first? What if she had pulled her hands away like that because she didn’t want Shawn to know what had happened, making it easier for her to put the whole thing aside like it had never happened, because she didn’t want it to.</p><p> </p><p>So that was the moment he’d been playing over in his mind, pulling it apart with the agonized devotion of one who feared the results. The hand pull… over, and over…</p><p> </p><p>She was there, just across the aisle. He looked at her, sitting with Riley, looking to pick a movie for them to watch. He wished she’d look at him; he could read her eyes…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0206"><h2>206. Their Choice After a Rebellion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riley had fallen asleep looking out at the clouds, leaving Maya alone to her thoughts. There was little hope for her to think her mind would not go ahead and tiptoe across the aisle toward the boy who sat there on the other side. They were not in any position to change anything here and now, and looking at him, she felt positive, would only make matters worse. Maybe she could pretend to sleep, too.</p><p> </p><p>What she tried so hard not to think now was… what if she never knew what to say to him? It was all she was able to think about anymore, and she couldn’t do a thing about it, which only made it more frustrating. She used to find it so silly, so incomprehensible, that people could just get so caught up in one another like that, but now… now she had him in her life, and it was starting to make more sense… while also making no sense at all. It was just so frustrating. Not him, not Lucas, he was not the frustrating part, it was <em>this</em>, the not knowing what to do going forward.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted her friend back. Her guide, her confidant, her Huckleberry… but she didn’t want to lose the rest either, the way he made her feel, when he looked into her eyes, saying nothing at all, the way he’d smile, and how he made <em>her</em> smile. Much as she wanted the simpler days back, at no time was she prepared to sacrifice the chaotic present. It was the uncertain future that troubled her, none more now than since the kiss. It had changed everything, there was no going back from that, it couldn’t be brushed aside, it was a kiss, a proper, heart thrilling kiss. She may not have had any other in her personal life to compare it to, but she didn’t need to, she knew. It was like a bomb, sitting inoffensively inert, and now… now. The clock had been started, ticking away.</p><p> </p><p>She tried to think about something else, not to be left here, feeling she was in the spotlight and glued to the spot, on this flight. Unfortunately, the only other thing she managed to think about was still really close and only brought her more conflict. She thought about seeing her mother again. She couldn’t wait for it, had actually missed her so much more than she, at one time in her life, could have believed she was able to miss her. She wanted to tell her about being back in New York…</p><p> </p><p>… and then she had to remind herself of what she would also have to talk to her about. Shawn had told her about the previous morning’s situation and what he knew of it at least. She hadn’t managed to talk to him yet, to explain herself. But she was going to have to do it, to explain to him, and to her mother, too. And now this was where it all flipped back into Lucas territory. Something would have to be done. That was what her mind was telling her, wasn’t it? Well great, sure… only <em>what</em>?</p><p> </p><p>She <em>had</em> to explain it to her mother and Shawn, yes, but what was she supposed to tell them? She didn’t want to lie to them, to keep anything from them, but she was afraid that if she told them how yesterday morning had started, and ended, it would only wash out everything that sat in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>She’d had a legitimate reason to be out there, to need to get away and clear her head. She hadn’t gone out with the express purpose of getting to kiss a boy. They wouldn’t think that was what she’d done, would they? But what if they did? What if they did?</p><p> </p><p>For a moment she had abandoned herself to the solution that she <em>would</em> pretend to sleep, if only for a little while. Who knew, maybe she would fall asleep for real and she could give herself a rest.</p><p> </p><p>Only in that effort she had reflexively turned to the side… and remembered where she was, and who sat right across from her. He was looking at the little book he’d gotten in a gift shop that morning, and she watched him for a while like this. Would it ever feel normal, the way <em>she</em> felt, when she saw him again? Maybe… She hoped so… She hoped not…</p><p> </p><p>He stopped then, feeling eyes on him no doubt. When he turned to look, found her looking, the small smile that came rising over his face… He turned to look the other way, and understanding why, she looked, too. Asher looked to be sleeping, like Riley; Dylan was absorbed in a movie. Zay and Nadine were awake, but they were kind of far, weren’t they? If she and Lucas kept their voices down, they could just…</p><p> </p><p>The voice over the PA came right then, startling them both as they learned they were about to land. The flight was over already? Had the time escaped them so much?</p><p> </p><p>But now Riley was awake, and so was Asher, and everyone had that sort of restless anticipation about them in preparation for the landing. The opportunity was gone, and Maya sat back in her seat with so much aggravated frustration that Riley asked if she was alright. Maya assured her that she was fine, that she was just anxious to reach home.</p><p> </p><p>She looked back across the aisle, found Lucas in much the same state. She mouthed a silent apology to him. He just smiled, nodded; he understood. There was that at least. Maybe they’d get a moment to talk, out there in the airport.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0207"><h2>207. Their Choice After a Disconnect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They did not get to talk in the airport, not in the way either of them had wanted.</p><p> </p><p>Getting off the plane, all of them, there was something of a relief, to know that they were almost home again, and for none of them – especially after their having gone to New York finally – was it sweeter a feeling than for Maya. She was so happy to be back in Texas.</p><p> </p><p>The seven of them were reunited with Cory and Topanga as they made their way out and then, once they had their luggage back, they would have a van to take them back home. To this came two surprises, although really it had been half-expected, in some form, by those concerned. As they moved through the airport there suddenly came Katy Hart and Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar to collect their children in person rather than have them dropped off by the Matthews.</p><p> </p><p>Maya gave no mind to what might come of this. For the moment, as soon as she spotted her mother, her face burst into a smile, and she ran into her arms, where she was welcomed with a great embrace that had her feet off the ground for several seconds. Even when her feet touched down again, neither of them appeared in any way interested in letting go of one another.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas watched this unfold with certain gladness for his friend. He didn’t anticipate an identical sort of response from his own parents as he moved toward them. His mother pulled him into her arms, and although he felt just a bit shy about getting hugged by her in the middle of an airport, he didn’t resist it. Instead, his eyes sought out his father. His mother, well intentioned as she always was, would not be the one to look to if he wanted to know just how much trouble he was in. He could come home covered in blood and she would find a way to repel any blame off him.</p><p> </p><p>His father didn’t look angry, not really. What Lucas found there instead, and which really in his eye felt much worse than a sea of anger, was a drop of disappointment. His running off with Maya and the others the way he’d done the morning before didn’t seem like such a big deal to him, but to his father apparently it wasn’t so. He said nothing, not yet, but still Lucas could tell, and it made his stomach sink.</p><p> </p><p>When Maya finally pulled back from her mother, she was just as nervous about the look she might find on her face. She didn’t find anger either, not even so much disappointment either, but like Lucas, what she found made her feel worse than if that had been what had been there. She saw a flood of relief, with tinges of sadness and sleeplessness. Maya could imagine it all now, the way she might not have allowed herself to do so the morning before.</p><p> </p><p>She imagined Riley’s parents, or worse yet Shawn, would have called and told her that Maya was gone, and they didn’t know where she was. And her mother, miles and states away, would have been stuck there, helpless. They might have asked her where she might go, which would make sense, as Maya knew Zay and Nadine had returned to Farkle’s to find Shawn was already out looking for Lucas and her. And in the meantime, there would have been her mother, back here, waiting to know she was safe. She would have probably ended up here at the airport to fly off to New York if she hadn’t been found so quick.</p><p> </p><p>They hadn’t really talked about the incident over the phone, her or Lucas, beyond promises that they were back and they were fine, which they could all understand would mean only one thing: the real talk would happen once they were back in town. Well now they were.</p><p> </p><p>Maya turned to say goodbye to the others, until school on Monday morning. It might have been that they sensed trouble brewing, going by the hugs they gave, as though their friends were off to prison somehow. They didn’t hug one another, for more than one reason and all of them valid. They didn’t know what their respective parents thought had gone on and they weren’t of a mind to give them more ideas. And even before that, the first and more pressing restraint to their attempting to hug went back, again, to the events of the morning before. Until they really managed to talk, it felt, they couldn’t really know how to be around each other again, and the hug might have incited something they didn’t intend to.</p><p> </p><p>Even so, again, since it seemed to be the only thing that they were able to pull off since Shawn had come into the diner, their eyes briefly met. In either of them, there was some small concern that they would pay dearly for the morning before, and this might be the last time they saw each other. It likely wouldn’t be, and they knew, deep down, but stepping into the unknown had a way of letting any manner of thought run free in their heads.</p><p> </p><p>All they could do now was to follow their parents to their respective cars, for what was bound to be something of an unpleasant ride. There was nothing to be said or done except to take it, hoping to make it through on the other side.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0208"><h2>208. Their Choice After An Incident</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the length of the drive home, Lucas was put to his mother’s questions, not about the incident of the morning before but rather about his time in New York. She herself had been there twice in her life, as she had told him, only she had been three years old the first time, so she could only recall the second, when she’d been not much older than he was now, as she said, though <em>he</em> knew she’d been twenty-two. He answered her questions about this place and that one, as factually as one might, when one wasn’t really paying attention.</p><p> </p><p>His mother’s voice would declare itself as reigning the ride home, when Lucas knew the true ruler here was his father’s silence as he drove.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas would find himself staring at the back of his head, much as he tried not to, trying to decipher what was going through his mind. He didn’t look like he even heard a word of what his wife said, when it should have been impossible to shut them out.</p><p> </p><p>That look at the airport… Lucas couldn’t let it go. He wondered if he’d be back to getting driven to school as he’d been the year before, after his return from suspension. He had never wanted things to go back that way between him and his father. The last year and some, things had been so good between them, hadn’t they? Better than they’d been in a while. His father had never been a widely expressive man, but he didn’t need to be for Lucas to know who he was or how they related. Even so, he had seen pride in his father’s eyes in the past year, enough times that it had become something familiar and reassuring to him. The thought now of losing that, for something so natural as wanting to help and stand by a friend…</p><p> </p><p>When they pulled up to the house, he went and got his bags from the trunk and went in, up to his room. He only went and put them on his bed, meaning to go straightaway and see his father, to explain to him what had happened the morning before. When he turned to leave his room again, his father stood in the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>There was a brief silence, as his father walked in, then took a seat at his desk chair. Lucas sat on the edge of his bed, understanding – he hoped – the silent beckoning: Talk to me.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad, I had to, I…” A part of him felt like he was betraying one trust to keep another. But then he knew deep down that Maya would understand, that she’d want him to tell his father, if it meant salvaging what had been ruptured. At the very least, she’d know by now that Tom Friar was someone who could be trusted to hold the words in private. “It was hard on Maya, being back in New York. I could see it. Then when she came and asked me to go with her, I didn’t want her to go alone. I could have stopped her, but she <em>needed</em> to go, you know? So, I went, with her, and Zay and Nadine. And I knew I’d done the right thing when we were called back. She wasn’t ready to go. I talked to her, to help her feel better about everything. She’s my friend, Dad, she…” He couldn’t exactly bestow the title of best friend on to her when Zay was still that, but then wasn’t she that? In a way? Oh, there was the other thing of course, but there was no defining that, and he wasn’t about to try, not with his father there especially. “I had to look out for her, and I’m sorry for the trouble we caused, and the worry, and the disappointment.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not disappointed in you, Lucas,” his father said.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, you are, I saw it,” he looked back into his father’s eyes, though he saw little to none of it now. His father sighed, stood and paced about.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, I’ll admit there was something there, yesterday, today. And I was ashamed, of that, of myself. For a moment I went and made assumptions of you that came of a time that’s behind us now, and I shouldn’t have. That’s not the boy you are anymore, is it?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, Sir,” he vowed. His father looked back at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever the reason, good or bad, for your going out the way you did, you’ve earned the benefit of the doubt, and I took that away from you. Now, I’ve heard you out, as I should have all along, instead of letting my mind wander. You’re right. You had to go, and I’m glad you did.” Lucas breathed, quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“Then you’re not mad? At me, or…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya? No, of course not,” his father reassured him, and it was on this day Lucas saw how much his father had come to have a soft spot for her. Oh, he was good to all of his friends, but the way he’d speak to her, when she was around… He cared to know how she was doing. Lucas could have hugged his father, for being that way.</p><p> </p><p>“Good, that’s… that’s good.” His father nodded, and then he went to leave the room.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas watched him go, and as he did, he thought of something again now that the worry over his father’s disappointment had lifted. Maybe it would be pushing his luck to do anything now, but really he couldn’t hold it off.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad, wait…” he went after him.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0209"><h2>209. Their Choice After a Repeat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They had gotten in the car, Maya and her mother, and the drive home had started off silent, with both of them looking as though they were unsure where to start or who should talk first. Maya couldn’t say what was going through her mother’s mind exactly, but to her it all felt eerily familiar; it felt like driving home from the train station, on the aborted run for New York.</p><p> </p><p>The uncertainty, like that time, kept hold of them all the way back home, a longer stretch by far, which let Maya feel the knot in her stomach grow tighter and tighter. When the car came to a stop, she couldn’t bear it anymore; she had to speak now.</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t running.” Her mother stopped and turned to her. “I didn’t think, I didn’t realize… I’m so sorry I made you worry like that, Mom, I didn’t…” she shook her head, trying not to start crying. She so wished her mother could feel what was in her heart to feel when it came to her.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t think you were running, Maya,” her mother reached out, touching her face, and out came the tears. “You promised me once, and I trust you, okay?” Maya nodded. “I <em>was</em> worried, because something was wrong with my daughter and I wasn’t there. I was disappointed at myself because I should have known, and I did know…” Maya looked surprised.</p><p> </p><p>“You did?”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe not down to the last detail, but… Maya, come on, now, I’m your mother, and I know back in the day that might not have meant the same as it does now, but here and now… I knew it was going to be hard for you, going back there. You go and build something up like that, in your head, for all that time… Baby Girl, it’ll never be that. And I knew you would be forced to find that out. I wanted to go with you, at first, but I couldn’t get away from the theater.” Maya nodded; she’d known this. “So, I let you go with the others and hoped for the best.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who called you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn,” her mother nodded. “He told me you and a few of the other kids had taken off while everyone slept, and I knew… it all got to you, didn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>Maya couldn’t hold it in. She could only nod, telling her mother about going out with Lucas, Zay, and Nadine, walking around a while before ending up back at the old diner, how she saw April and they were treated to breakfast. She told her about not being ready to go back yet when they were called back, and how Lucas stayed with her and they talked, how she got better from it and was able to enjoy the rest of her time in New York.</p><p> </p><p>“You told Shawn about the diner, didn’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I guess I had a feeling you’d find your way there. I’m not ashamed to say I was very impressed with myself for getting that one right.” It made Maya laugh, and the sound of it had her mother smiling, reaching over to pull her near again. “All I care about is that you’re alright, not just physically but… everywhere.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m alright everywhere,” she vowed, in her mother’s arms.</p><p> </p><p>Walking into her home, her dear sweet little home, she dared say it had never looked so good. She walked into her room, and she breathed it in, setting her bags down and plopping down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>Hadn’t she just lied to her mother a little? She wasn’t alright ‘everywhere,’ not really. But the part that held out, here termed as the Rebel Lands, was one she just didn’t know how to share with her yet. She didn’t know how to share the Lucas of it all. And how could she, really? Oh, how she wished they could have talked.</p><p> </p><p>There really was no one she felt at ease to open up to about this, it was just… private, to her heart, and mind. She couldn’t even see herself telling Riley about it, even though she was halfway sure her friend already knew to some degree. Since they’d returned, him and her, the morning before, Maya had seen questions in her best friend’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would find a way and go and talk to him. She would have wanted to go tonight, right now, but she couldn’t tell her mother the truth if she did that, and she didn’t see herself sneaking off at a time like this.</p><p> </p><p>But it was alright, maybe even better. She’d have the night to think it through, to figure out what she might say. Like she hadn’t had all this time since yesterday with so little… with no success at all.</p><p> </p><p>She got up, went to find her sketchbook and a pencil. Maybe if she sat there and drew a while it would become clearer. She sat in the bay window, pulled up her legs, reached to open the window… and almost screeched.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” she whispered, blinking at the sight of him standing there; he looked just about as startled as her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey… Can we talk now?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0210"><h2>210. Their Choice After a Kiss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t as though it was the first time Lucas or any one of her friends popped in at her window. At times, her mother had come in to find them sitting there before retreating with a look in her eyes like she wondered if she’d just spaced out on seeing them arrive. But that night of all nights, Maya saw Lucas there, asking to speak with her, and she stopped him before he might try and crawl in.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” she whispered. “You need to use the door,” she instructed him.</p><p> </p><p>“Why?” he whispered back.</p><p> </p><p>“Because you know why,” she countered, and yes, he did know, so he scurried off, and she breathed out. Things had been too potentially complicated by their actions of the previous morning, so, for the time being, they couldn’t take any chances.</p><p> </p><p>She scrambled to her door when she heard the bell, before calmly strolling out. Her mother would make it to the front door first. When she opened and found Lucas there, she looked surprised. Hadn’t they all been together until not that long ago? He was stuck; he hadn’t thought of an excuse.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, hey, I’ve got it, yeah,” Maya stepped in, as though they’d spoken of something earlier. “I ended up with something of his in my bags when we packed, no space left,” she told her mother. “Is it okay?” Her mother nodded, so Lucas followed.</p><p> </p><p>He went and sat right where he might have been sitting a minute before, had she let him in through the window, and she joined him, pulling the forgotten sketchbook into her lap. A moment later, as silence was threatening to set, she got up again, setting the book down on her bed, opening one of her bags and digging through it until she found a stuffed bear dressed like the Statue of Liberty and handed it to him.</p><p> </p><p>“What…” he started to ask, then remembering what she’d told her mother, he nodded. “Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to give it to Sara,” she told him, and he tried to give it back. “No, it’s fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll give you one of my souvenirs to give her,” he declared, so she allowed it with a smile. Seeing it seemed to encourage Lucas, so he forged on. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about… yesterday.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yesterday, yeah…” she repeated ponderingly. “That happened,” she went on, trying to keep her laugh from turning nervous; it was a middling success. The memory of it still managed to send her heart in flutters. She knew she could keep a straight face to a point, but she was genuinely concerned on the possibility she might have been blushing. “You’re not… you’re not sorry it did, are you?”</p><p> </p><p>“What? No, no, I…” he spoke quickly, half startling her as she hushed him and looked back to see if her mother might have been roaming about. “No, of course not, I…” he started again, voice lowered, calmer. “Maya, I have wanted to… for a while,” he admitted, which at once left her feeling any number of conflicting emotions.</p><p> </p><p>Chief among those and on warring camps, the Rebel Lord, ruler of joy and heart and daring forward motions, and standing against him the constant Loyalist, the great doubter, cautioning on advances that may riddle the land with destruction in the end.</p><p> </p><p>The Rebel Lord was in complete elation. Lucas wasn’t sorry at all, no, he had <em>wanted</em> to kiss her, he had wanted it before that day, and now it had happened, and knowing his position on it had allowed the Rebel to fill her with memories and feelings, and urged her to speak.</p><p> </p><p>“Me, too,” she admitted, and seeing the smile on him, it made the war rage on. The Rebel was ready to declare for him then and there, lean forward that they might seal victory with a second kiss. She could see plainly on his face that he was considering much of the same thing. But the Loyalist, the great protector to the Nation of Maya, still held his ground, kept her cautious. She knew where she stood, didn’t she? Hadn’t she been turning it over in her head long enough to know that? How could she tell him about it without it coming out wrong?</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t sure after a while,” he told her. “We didn’t get to talk, so I didn’t know… After I got home, I knew I couldn’t keep waiting,” he explained.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas…” she started, cautious, uncertain, the Loyalist urging her on, keeping the Rebel at bay. “You know you’ve always said I could tell you anything? And I <em>have</em> done that, many times since.” He nodded. She looked at him again. “Say I had this friend… I see him as my best friend… from Texas,” she amended, as always. She had never told him as much and seeing the look on his face when he heard it was just a marvel. “And this friend had come to matter to me, just so, <em>so</em> much, ever since we moved here. I’ve relied on him, again and again, because of that. And he’s never let me down, not once.</p><p> </p><p>“Say this friend, over time, had started to… feel like something else, something…” she breathed out, nervous. “Something that the very thought of it being broken or lost… makes me feel like I couldn’t breathe.” He was understanding now, and to his credit, he went on listening, showing only the slightest realization of where this was headed. “What do you think my friend would say?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think he’d say…” he started, then paused, thinking to himself. Whatever was going through his mind, he was looking at her all along, as though reminding himself what was on the line. “I think he’d say not to do anything you’re not ready to do. I’m pretty sure he’d wait as long as it took, if… if that was what you wanted.” The seconds that followed, silent as they were, carried the sense of peace that was returned with this declaration.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she replied slowly, and he nodded back. “Is he…” She sighed, dropping pretense. “Are you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Absolutely,” he assured her. “Best friend from New York.” She chuckled. “I should go, I told my father I wouldn’t be too long, and then your mother,” he held up the bear.</p><p> </p><p>“How did it go? With him? What did he say?” He’d gone to stand, but now sat back down again. “Was he mad?”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s alright, it’s fine. We talked. I told him what happened, not… not the last part,” he revealed, and she nodded. “He really cares about you, too, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Does he?” she blinked, surprised but touched. “That’s good… I mean, that he wasn’t mad, and you’re not in trouble. We really need to stop getting into these situations, don’t we?” she told him, thinking to herself how once she might have seen it differently.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the others?” he asked as he was about to leave again, repeating his rise and return. “What do we tell them?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, nothing, no, not… not now. Last thing we need is them trying to… scheme. <em>We’re</em> the schemers here, we don’t get schemed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Got it, mouth closed,” he vowed, and she knew his word would hold. He wouldn’t tell anyone. “I really need to go this time,” he finally said, standing up. She did the same, escorting him out to the door and watching him down the street until he was out of sight.</p><p> </p><p>Returning to her room, she picked up the sketchbook, moved to sit again. She didn’t feel that same need to ‘draw it out’ anymore; they’d talked it out instead.</p><p> </p><p>Still, after what they’d said, she felt something in her to put to paper and so she did, putting a ‘face’ to her Rebel and her Loyalist, their constant struggle, all under the same great goal, which was her ongoing happiness. She would await the day when those two found a way to strike peace, and on that day… on that day, it would all have been worth the fight.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0211"><h2>211. Their Attempt to Watch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>January had passed into February and now March was stretching on, as though this year could not wait to be done with them and move them onward on to the next part of their lives. Still, in the meantime, the world carried on. That afternoon, Maya, Riley, and Nadine, were joined in the stands by Dylan – out of his cast but still benched for the remainder of the year – and by Joey Garcia, there to support his twin as much as to spend time with the lot of them, while Asher, and Lucas and Zay and the rest of the boys’ team were out on the court, mid-practice. It always just felt like there was nowhere else to be for them, much as the others would think and do, when it was the girls’ team’s turn.</p><p> </p><p>As things went, it could be said that the last several weeks were fairly run of the mill. Classes, practices, games, families and friends and all the rest… It was getting to the point in the year where they could just about start to see summer looming on the horizon, and if that weren’t enough, this was their transition from middle into high school. How it had all gone by so fast, they couldn’t say. Only a second ago, they’d started here, and now they’d be leaving, starting again.</p><p> </p><p>As nerve wracking as it could get, and certainly some of them were notably concerned, it wasn’t long that they’d found the key not to panic. All they had to do was to remember they would all be making this move together, all seven, all eight with Joey.</p><p> </p><p>The only one who seemed to carry some leftover anguish was Riley, and Maya had expected this as soon as she’d figured it was coming for herself. They would be moving forward; her father wouldn’t. He’d only just started at their middle school, not even a year done. Maya had pointed out to Riley how many times she’d complained about having her father for a teacher and, yes, Riley did remember, too, but it didn’t change the fact that seeing him up there had been sort of comforting, and now she was sort of scared of seeing how she’d go on without him.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting as they did, Maya would find herself looking over at Dylan as he sat with them, watching the others practice. It didn’t seem fair that he couldn’t play, none more so than when she’d see that twinge of sadness in his face, him who had always been one of the most unfailingly positive people she’d ever met. It didn’t look right on him, not a little or at all.</p><p> </p><p>So, she would try to distract him, as did the others. On the surface, it really wasn’t so hard to accomplish. But then he would look to the side, see the team out there, and his eyes would grow yearning again. So, then it would be time for another distraction.</p><p> </p><p>She thought about his cast, about the day when it had finally come off. He still went about in crutches, his knee and his ankle still on the mend. Even so, he had been almost sad to lose his cast, according to him, because he couldn’t see the signatures and drawings anymore. So, Maya had drawn on his jeans. That had made him feel better. She wished now that she could come up with a fix just as simple for how he felt.</p><p> </p><p>Was this all she’d ever get to do, to sit back and watch her friends be bummed out this way, with nothing she could do? That seemed to be following her these days, between Riley’s teacher-dad issues, and Dylan’s basketball nostalgia… It wasn’t just them either. There were Zay and Nadine, who for nearly two days the week before had been broken up, only to reappear on the third morning like nothing had happened. She didn’t know what she would have done if they hadn’t made up and carried on.</p><p> </p><p>And then she supposed she knew exactly what the biggest issue was grown out of, but oh she was not looking to get into it now, when she and the others were meant to be encouraging those three boys and their team. When she did it though it felt exactly like what it was, put upon and acted. She hid it under a forced yawn, which at least sounded more credible than the rest.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, Maya!” Nadine’s warning call pulled her back to reality where she spotted what the other girl had seen, which was how Riley was on her feet now, on the verge of approaching the coach with some more of her ‘sage advice.’ As correct as she tended to be, it had almost cost them the right to sit in on practice before.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, alright, get back here,” Maya had hurried to pull her best friend back and make her sit, much as she contested this. “They’ll figure it out, it’s fine,” she nodded to Riley, who looked less and less like she would manage to hold her tongue. It didn’t help that, in overhearing what she meant to say, Dylan had voiced his agreement with Riley. But then soon Riley had climbed back into the stands and sat next to Dylan, before getting into a lively but still contained conversation, so that was a relief, on so many levels. That was three whole issues put at bay.</p><p> </p><p>Only now a fourth one was approaching. The coach was giving the team five minutes’ pause. Lucas, Zay and Asher came jogging in their direction, and she didn’t know what was going through everyone else’s minds in that moment, but hers was a minefield. She couldn’t move in more ways than one. But she had to, and she did, blinking back into herself. They’d chosen this, hadn’t they, him and her? The secrets, the thought of… something… All of it had been the right call, but it still didn’t feel that way to her most of the time.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0212"><h2>212. Their Attempt to Act</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riley had wasted no time – with an assist from Dylan – to pass on her judgment of what was happening out on that court, though Maya was amused to see her as she tried so very hard to sound like she hadn’t been ready to go all beastie on the coach a few minutes earlier. It was just as well that the boys, like Maya and Nadine on their own team, were familiar enough with these outbursts and would take them in stride. Maya had been vocal in proclaiming Riley Matthews their lucky charm.</p><p> </p><p>“Chubbie’s after?” Asher suggested, catching his breath, while he and Lucas and Zay picked up water bottles sitting waiting for them on the lowest bench.</p><p> </p><p>“I need to watch my sisters, Mom’s exhausted these days, the baby’s almost here,” Nadine reminded them.</p><p> </p><p>“Bring them along,” Riley suggested. “And I’ll get Auggie.” Those three running around Chubbie’s together was coming to be a familiar sight, along with Auggie’s Canadian friend.</p><p> </p><p>With that settled, as Maya had feared, the subject had turned to the school dance. It was in a few weeks still, in April, but the posters had just appeared across the school overnight, and now it was all they seemed to hear in the halls, in classes, the cafeteria, the bathrooms…</p><p> </p><p>Zay had already made a show of asking Nadine to be his date that night. She had laughed, pointing out that they already were a couple, to which he had pointed out that, be that as it may, he wouldn’t have felt right to just assume and not ask if she actually wanted to go. She had kissed him and said that, yes, she would go with him.</p><p> </p><p>Then at lunch, a surprisingly quick conversation had reached a conclusion which left Riley to be escorted by both Asher and Dylan. Officially, Riley had first told Dylan she would go with him, never wanting him to be left out because of his injury. Dylan had been thankful for this but, thinking of her as much as she’d thought of him, he didn’t want her penalized on his account. He didn’t know that he’d be able to do much – or any – dancing by then. And so, Asher had stepped in to back up his best friend, offering to be there as Riley’s dance partner. So that was settled.</p><p> </p><p>If they were to check off their group of seven as having made their plans known for that night, the only two left were Lucas and her, and Maya wanted to keep them away from that territory as much as she could. She had tapped Joey’s shoulder, asking if he had any plans for the dance.</p><p> </p><p>“Probably just going to stay home,” he admitted, and Maya knew her planned distraction had fizzled out of existence before it properly sparked.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what about you two?” Zay had wasted no time in asking, pointing to Lucas and then to her with his bottle.</p><p> </p><p>Now everyone else’s eyes were on them, and Maya tried to look at Lucas without really looking at him. Even now, and although she thought she did fairly well in acting normal, looking at him straight on would pull her back under the dominion of the Rebel and the Loyalist, still locked in fierce battle, and she couldn’t have that now. The side effect of course was that she must have looked just borderline ridiculous.</p><p> </p><p>“I, well…” she started to say, while Lucas went and gave much the same sort of babbling response. Maya wanted so much to just smack her forehead – and his.</p><p> </p><p>Hadn’t their arrangement been going well enough, all these weeks? They were normal around each other, not awkward, not like this. Now with the slightest suggestion of anything, which technically she guessed wasn’t even an actual suggestion at all… Zay hadn’t necessarily asked what they would do like he assumed they would go together, did he? No, so really it was her and Lucas who were being weird about this for no reason at all, and now it would get everything thrown into a mess.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think anything has to be decided now, does it?” Lucas found his voice, and Maya latched on to this with all she had.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, no, it doesn’t,” she told him. “Why do we even need someone to go with us anyway?” she went on, and in an instant she saw something flash across his face that made her wonder if her last statement had taken it too far from the point. She cleared her throat, tipping her head back to the others. “So, the answer is… I don’t know yet.” Lucas said nothing.</p><p> </p><p>The coach called back the players soon after and Lucas, Asher and Zay ran off toward their teammates, leaving the others to carry on as they’d been. Of course now what they were left with were the lingering notes of what they’d just witnessed, and Maya wished so much that this had been the girls’ practice so <em>she</em> could have safely run off back to practice where no one would go and question her.</p><p> </p><p>But no, she was left <em>here</em>, and she could have come up with some excuse which would have allowed her to dash away, but she knew enough to know she would only have made matters worse. So, she sat there, a sitting duck, waiting for the hunters to fall on her. It really took no time at all.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0213"><h2>213. Their Attempt to Pretend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What was that about?” Nadine asked, and as quick on her feet as Maya had long prided herself to be, she worried that she would come up empty in that moment, which could really only make matters worse. But then even if she did struggle to find an actual answer to give them, her mind wasn’t without rescue. She could still evade pretty well.</p><p> </p><p>“What was what about?” she casually asked. Nadine hadn’t been the only one to see, of course.</p><p> </p><p>“You and Lucas,” Riley replied before she could. “What’s going on with you two?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s nothing going on, he’s my friend,” Maya insisted, applauding herself internally for sounding relatively believable.</p><p> </p><p>“Now that they mention it, you guys have been acting kind of weird since New York,” Dylan piped in, and again Maya played evasive. She looked to Joey to see if <em>he</em> had anything to add, but he didn’t; what he did have was a sort of knowing look in his eyes, afforded to him by the failed date the two of them had gone on shortly before the trip to New York. He could put certain things together that the others couldn’t, but then she didn’t worry; he would never speak of it, and she didn’t have to so much as draw a promise out of him. It wasn’t in Joey to babble, not even to his twin. There was no worry to be had from him.</p><p> </p><p>But then the others, what they’d said… Here she’d thought that things had been going so well. Had she missed something? Had it been right in front of her without her noticing? How could that even be?</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think they’ve been weird,” she stated, not liking the tone of defensiveness in her own voice, like she <em>had</em> something to defend.</p><p> </p><p>“But something’s up, I know it is,” Riley told her, looking at her now like she was seeing her again for the first time in a while, noticing things. Maya wanted to wave her arms in her best friend’s face, break her concentration, just not let her realize that Maya had been keeping things from her, that she’d been lying. Anything but that. But she couldn’t do that.</p><p> </p><p>She looked out at the basketball court, the boys back at practice. She found herself looking at Lucas there among them. He had spent these last several weeks being as true to his word as she could ever hope for him to be. She had wanted to keep their whole situation private, and he had given her that. He hadn’t said a word, she knew that he didn’t, which was reassuring in so many ways. Even they hadn’t brought it up when it was just them. She couldn’t say for sure what he was thinking all this time, but she did feel all was well.</p><p> </p><p>It was up to her to decide if she was ready and/or willing to share with the rest of them. She almost didn’t have a choice at this point, did she? Even so, she didn’t have to tell them everything; she had no intention to tell them about the kiss, that was for sure. Now for the rest… She couldn’t evade forever, could she?</p><p> </p><p>“Look, it was harder than I thought it would be, being back there,” she started, slowly. Riley, at this, reached out to take her hand, which Maya knew she could expect. “Lucas helped me figure it out, so I was thankful.”</p><p> </p><p>“Still doesn’t explain why you guys were being so weird,” Dylan put in again, and if it had been anyone but him, she could have gotten so upset.</p><p> </p><p>“I just said something I shouldn’t have, and he kind of took it badly, for half a second. He’s better now though. See?” she pointed back to the court. “What if we’re being a little awkward? It happens.”</p><p> </p><p>“About not needing anyone to go to the dance with,” Nadine recalled, in the sort of questioning voice that showed skepticism on what she was being told being in any way right. Even Maya could feel she might have walked right into the place she’d meant not to go. Her friends were not only familiar with Lucas and her, they also weren’t dumb, and there didn’t seem any way for them not to find the truth of it.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t really think that about the dance, do you?” Riley asked her.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe I do,” she told her friends, all of them. For a moment or two she even believed herself.</p><p> </p><p>But just as quick she also knew it couldn’t have been further from the truth. She <em>had</em> thought about it, all of it, what she wanted to do, all of it. But once she got that far, what took over was the knowledge that she wanted all that with him, and she couldn’t have it. They’d promised something, him and her, and she had to play by it, as much as it pained her; the alternative would hurt so much more.</p><p> </p><p>She greatly doubted that they believed her, but then they didn’t question her again, and she felt a great relief. How long would this one hold, she wondered, with the glancing blows her outlook on things had taken? She was afraid it would all crumble around her.</p><p> </p><p>She longed for a day where it wouldn’t all be complicated this way, where she could hand the keys of the Land of Maya to the Rebel Lord for good. Until then, she had to keep playing the part.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0214"><h2>214. Their Attempt to See</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were often other kids who, like them, would sit in the stands during practices, the better to encourage a friend, or a sibling, a boyfriend or girlfriend… It was always more or less a case of the usual suspects, so when a new face popped up, it had a way of sticking out. In this instance, the face that Maya saw was crowned by hair of many colors, vibrant ones, going from purples and down to turquoise greens, sprouting from a high ponytail. It would have been impossible to forget whether or not she’d seen her in here before, and she hadn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s that?” she asked aloud as she thought it; here she’d assumed she knew all the 8<sup>th</sup> graders, by face if not by name. The others turned to look.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s Rebecca Fitz,” Nadine smiled when she saw her. Maya knew the name now, remembered Nadine telling her about her. She’d been one of her first friends after she’d moved into the area, going on four years before now. She also knew they’d had a falling out for a while, though going by the smile, Maya guessed things had since gotten better. Either way, it might have explained how she hadn’t known her when she appeared here. “Don’t know why she came though.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, let’s find out,” Maya stood. “Be right back,” she told the other four before snaking up and down the stands to get to Rebecca. As she did so, she noticed the girl was definitely following one player with her eyes, probably the one who had brought her into the gym that day. Maya tried to pinpoint who was the object of her focus, and it took her a few looks from the girl to the court and back before she zeroed in on the guy at hand. She smirked before finally reaching her. Riley might be losing her dance partner if she had it right.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” she stopped next to the girl, who blinked in such a way that said she hadn’t realized she’d been watched. “I’m Maya. You’re Rebecca, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I am… and I know who you are, you’re on the girls’ team.” She looked awkward, startled; she had been busted.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” Maya gave her a smile. “Asher’s my friend, there’s nothing to hide here. You came to see him play.”</p><p> </p><p>“I… I’ve been meaning to, I guess, once I figured out it was him. That took a while,” she breathed out, then, off the confused look on Maya’s face, “I heard him before, but I never saw him. I didn’t even think he went here, but then I heard that voice again, and I knew it had to be him.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still lost, what do you mean you heard him before?”</p><p> </p><p>“I was at Chubbie’s one night, like two months ago, I was having dinner with my moms. There was a guy, sitting just behind me,” Rebecca explained, with the sort of smile one might get at recalling a cherished memory. “I started hearing him, and then after a while I was <em>listening</em> to him, and…” she shrugged, still smiling. “But then by the time I actually turned to look, he was gone, so I never saw him. He could have been anyone, but he wasn’t, he was… Asher Garcia,” she looked back to the boys in practice.</p><p> </p><p>Maya felt like the world had done her a favor, which was a rare thing it did. She knew exactly what Rebecca was referring to because she’d been there… She’d been on the receiving end of that conversation, so she knew…</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t Asher,” she told Rebecca, who didn’t look convinced, and Maya couldn’t blame her, when here she’d thought she’d solved her longstanding mystery. “But it was close, so close,” Maya promised her, before getting her to turn to the left and pointing back to where she’d been sitting, to the boys and girls watching the practice again. Maya indicated the boy sitting on the highest of the three benches they’d been sat across. “That’s Joey Garcia, Asher’s brother. He’s who you heard that night.”</p><p> </p><p>“How do you know?” Rebecca asked, stunned.</p><p> </p><p>“Because I was there with him. It started out as a date, when it shouldn’t have, ended as friends talking.” She left out the part where she’d felt terrible for basically deceiving and using him to sort out what was happening in her own heart. But now, now… Maybe that failed date had had more than one purpose. Despite the slight twin mix up, it might have led to a meeting that was meant to happen. Maybe Maya could make that night up to her friend.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, I can introduce you,” she told Rebecca, who’d been looking at Joey sitting up there. He still looked so very shy and closed in most of the time, though Maya knew there was more to him than that. Rebecca didn’t look at him in any way as though she was disappointed to trade in the basketball star for the shy, bench warming brother, though she still seemed to have trouble reconciling the voice she’d heard with the image she saw.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she finally said, curious, nervous… Maya could sort of see, looking at her, someone who could be just who Joey needed in his life.</p><p> </p><p>Maya led her across the stands toward the others. Nadine saw them coming, and she stood up, sharing a smile with her old friend. Maybe they would be that again, too. Rebecca was introduced to Riley, who loved her hair. Dylan already knew her and waved to her. Finally, Joey looked up and saw her, blinked in what had to be awe.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hello, I… Hi… I’m Joey,” he said, and the sound of his voice clicked in Rebecca’s eyes. Maya beamed; this could work.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0215"><h2>215. Their Attempt to Play</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Somewhere in the back of his mind, he should have known this time was coming, but it didn’t hit him until he came into school and he saw the posters. Then when he <em>had</em> seen them, it had all come to settle at the back of his head, pushed there because he knew what he wanted to do as much as he knew what doing it would do.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted to take Maya to that dance. But… but… He would look as though he was pushing her, wouldn’t he? She’d told him she wasn’t ready to take any step forward yet, and he understood that, respected that. He never wanted her to feel pressured or to wreck his chance with her by forcing her hand.</p><p> </p><p>That was the last thing he wanted to do, of course. Would it even really have to be what he’d be doing if he asked her, as her friend? It was a dance, not the most casual of hangouts. There would be dancing, him and her together… Fast dances would be one thing, all of them just sort of hopping around each other…</p><p> </p><p>But what if there were slow dances? Standing close, contact… Hands on shoulders, on waists… looking into the other’s eyes…</p><p> </p><p>“Friar, come on, pick up the pace!” the coach’s shout brought him back to reality, to basketball practice. Asher and Zay were looking at him with curiously questioning frowns. Lucas moved on, trying to focus again.</p><p> </p><p>He knew very well what had gotten him back into that mindset during practice. He hadn’t expected to be so thrown by what she’d said before, and really there had to be nothing to it more than what they’d been doing since New York, him and her. They were keeping all that quiet for the time being, which of course meant having to give made up excuses and little white lies to their friends in order to ‘throw them off the scent.’ But he was still considering asking her to go, and now…</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, I think you must have hit your head without us seeing, did you?” Zay asked, stopping at his side.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” he blinked back at him. “No, I’m fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, man, he kind of has a point,” Asher gave a shrug. “What’s going on with you? And Maya, too,” he added, and Lucas in that moment came to learn how terrible he was at keeping covert at times. It was easy if they managed to evade the matter before they reached the point where questions were formulated and put to him. But with those questions now laid in his hands, he knew he was in trouble.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing… Nothing’s going on, aren’t we supposed to be practicing?” he spoke much too loud and much too fast for his own taste, and he had to move off.</p><p> </p><p>If he said anything, he could trust that, as was their way, they would keep it to themselves. But this, it felt different, and he was 99% sure if he said anything, they would all know, and then… what would Maya think?</p><p> </p><p>Practice came to an end much faster than he would have thought it could. Before he knew it, they were back in the locker room to wash up and change. He tried not to pay attention to it, but he could hear Asher and Zay talking not too far off. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he found no lack of imagination in his mind.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, ready to go?” Asher asked, appearing at his side. Zay was there, too, of course, and Lucas picked up his bag with a nod. “Alright, come on.” He followed, surprised that they seemed to have let the whole Maya thing go all of a sudden. Or was it just him letting his mind make a bigger deal of it than he had need to?</p><p> </p><p>Maybe if he admitted it to himself, he did have trouble with this pause in between them. It was like having a fence wedged between them and having to somehow go on like he couldn’t see it, like it wasn’t there at all. But it <em>was</em> there; he kept getting his feet stuck in it.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t complaining, he wouldn’t. But it was going to keep on making him act weird and there was nothing he could do about it. It was the dance making him like this. It had to be. It would pass, the feeling, the dance… That was how it had to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are we headed after Chubbie’s?” Zay asked. “Dylan’s? We can challenge the girls. It’s been a while. Who won last?”</p><p> </p><p>“They did,” Lucas and Asher replied, and when Zay asked who’d won the one before that, again, it was the girls.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” Zay nodded. “Then we really have to win this one, yeah? Although… it <em>will</em> be three against two, now Riley’s ‘retired,’” he air-quoted, calling back an incident where the new girl had joined up with Maya and Nadine only to knock off Dylan from his seat with a bad throw. He’d been fine, but she had declared she was better off ‘leaving it to the professionals.’</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty sure we can convince her to come back out of retirement,” Asher declared with a chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>A good, friendly game at the Orlandos’, Lucas could do with that for sure. Something good and normal, familiar. Right about now, when things didn’t feel so normal everywhere else, he really wanted to just go and play with all his friends.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0216"><h2>216. Their Attempt to Repay</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From the moment Maya had brought Rebecca over, much as the intention had been to get her and Joey to talk, Rebecca had gone and sat down near Nadine. In no time the two of them were in deep conversation, which really nothing could be done about; they deserved the chance as much as anyone. It was to wonder how they hadn’t been friends all along, with the way they were going. All Maya knew was that Rebecca had been instrumental in Nadine’s coming to know and accept her liking girls as well as boys. Nadine had never specified what had pulled them apart, but she <em>had</em> promised it had nothing to do with that. She had only ever spoken of Rebecca Fitz as one of the kindest people she’d ever known, and Maya had needed little more to know to make this meet happen between her and Joey.</p><p> </p><p>As it was though, with Rebecca and Nadine talking along as they did, Joey could only sit quietly on his bench. He would never have cut into the conversation in a million years. But he was intrigued by the colorful girl, Maya could see it. He’d try not to look at her, but he would want to, and sooner or later he would… only to turn his eyes away again. And then the cycle would begin again.</p><p> </p><p>Something had to be done here. Maya really couldn’t say what compelled her the most. Was it the knowledge of how Rebecca had tracked him down after having been intrigued by him, sight unseen – even if she’d gotten it wrong at first – because she just wanted to know the boy she’d heard? Was it that she could see Joey was clearly intrigued by her? Was it that Maya felt she had something to repay him, even though their failed date had been the thing to bring their paths to halfway cross? Or was it that the ridiculousness in her head meant that she couldn’t have what she wanted?</p><p> </p><p>“Joey,” she dropped in next to him, spoke low at his ear. He startled, looked at her. “How are you doing?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… Fine?” he frowned, confused. “Why?” Maya tipped her head to indicate Rebecca below them. Joey looked at her, too, then turned back to Maya, words gone.</p><p> </p><p>“Talk to her,” Maya told him. He shook his head; he couldn’t do it. “You can do it.” He shook his head again. “Right,” she moved off to plan B. This was going to be harder than she thought. “Hey,” she moved to Riley and Dylan, quickly inciting them to wait in the hall for the guys. Practice was over anyway, they’d be out any minute, which meant they were on a clock.</p><p> </p><p>Now all she had to do was get the two girls to slow down the talk, though she didn’t want to get in the way of their mending bridges. Joey may have been incapable of cutting in, but <em>she</em> had no problem with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Rebecca?” she asked, and she and Nadine turned to her. “We’re all headed to Chubbie’s after this, you should come.” Nadine was quickly on board with this plan, and so Rebecca accepted. “Great, that’s great,” Maya nodded. “Hey, Nadine, can I talk to you for a second?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, sure. Be right back,” she told Rebecca, who now found herself alone on the stands with a suddenly pale looking Joey. “What’s up?” Nadine asked as she Maya, who was still looking at the others. Rebecca seemed to be realizing what was going on as well; she was turning to look at Joey, giving a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Depends. You know her, you know them both. Is either of them going to take the initiative or do we need to give them a little… nudge?”</p><p> </p><p>Nadine didn’t know what that meant, but Maya nodded to the two of them sitting there, and when Nadine looked, she understood. Quick as she could, Maya filled her in with the details of Rebecca’s search.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re turning into quite the Middle School Matchmaker, aren’t you?” Nadine joked, and Maya chuckled, though on the inside she wondered if this qualified as irony. “Give her a minute, she’ll get him talking,” she declared.</p><p> </p><p>And indeed, she was right. With the patience of a saint, Rebecca had started talking to Joey, carrying on even when it felt more like she was talking <em>at</em> him. But then in time he did start to reply, shortly. Rebecca would roll with what she got, and she would give more in return. Having seen what Joey Garcia looked like when he started to open up more, Maya knew the moment they were in business.</p><p> </p><p>Now they just had to clinch it. Standing where they did, Joey would see her, and Rebecca wouldn’t. She caught his eye and mimed as best as she could ‘ask her to the dance.’ Joey wasn’t getting it; if it took too long, they’d only distract him, and he’d lose his momentum.</p><p> </p><p>“Nadine, may I have this dance?” she quickly whispered, and with a grin, her friend had grasped her meaning, helping her take her miming to as direct of a presentation as they could make it, dancing about together, all the while looking at Joey and pointing from him to Rebecca. “He’s got to have it now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, he does, he just needs to do it and not pass out, which… well the odds are pretty even right now.”</p><p> </p><p>But then they got their miracle. He stammered his way through it like someone rolling and bumping down a mountain cliff, but Joey asked Rebecca to go to the dance with him, and she accepted, under the watchful eyes of Maya and Nadine, beaming proudly.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0217"><h2>217. Their Attempt to Carry On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing Lucas saw as he and the boys came back through and into the gym was Maya and Nadine, dancing together for some reason. Zay and Asher had just seen it as their friends goofing off, but for Lucas it was something else. He saw her, Maya, and all he could think was that she must have wanted to go to the dance more than she’d let on. And if she did go, didn’t she deserve for it to be the kind of memorable experience the rest of them would have?</p><p> </p><p>“What’s going on?” Asher asked, as they reached the girls. He was looking at his brother, as Lucas and Zay did the same. They all remembered Rebecca Fitz, who had been a semi-close friend a while back before sort of fading away.</p><p> </p><p>“Joey’s got himself a date to the dance,” Nadine declared. “Oh, and Bec’s coming with us to Chubbie’s.”</p><p> </p><p>And that was what they did, the nine of them leaving school and heading off to Chubbie’s. The whole time they were there, it felt like some kind of school reunion, with stories swapped, and shared, and rediscovered… It felt good to talk about those old days again. They all felt so near but also so long ago. It was all before Maya had come to Austin, and then the same with Riley… It was just so strange to think of a time when they weren’t with them, when they didn’t know such people existed at all.</p><p> </p><p>They invited both Joey and Rebecca to come with them to Dylan’s to play at the hoop, but they instead chose to remain at Chubbie’s a while longer. As shy as he would always be, Lucas didn’t think he’d ever seen Joey smile so much in so little a time as he did that afternoon at Chubbie’s. So, he and the others had gone on to Dylan’s house and left them there.</p><p> </p><p>Now that they were on their own, both Maya and Nadine had been able to tell the rest of the group about what had happened in the gym earlier, the whole tale of Joey and Rebecca leading to his asking her to the dance.</p><p> </p><p>“I was this close to pretend and ask her if he didn’t understand from the dancing.” At this revelation, Nadine had given an exaggerated gasp of surprise, before bursting out laughing. “Next time, I promise,” Maya played along with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, wait a second,” Zay intervened, and the girls had a laugh, before Nadine gave Maya a sidelong wink.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they’d reached the Orlando house, the whole matter had returned to pick at Lucas and his thoughts. And just as Maya had reached the top of the stairs leading to the front door, he made up his mind, standing just at the bottom step. It almost felt like they were back at the stands, in the gym, where he should have done this in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Maya, can I… Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked. She stopped there and turned to look at him. Maybe his eyes told her it was one of those things to do with ‘the secret,’ because at once she’d told the others to go on ahead and that they’d join them in a bit. After the door shut, she turned back to look at him.</p><p> </p><p>“The floor is yours, Huckleberry.” He smiled; he had to.</p><p> </p><p>“Say I had this friend…” he started, and she smiled back, recalling their last ‘hypothetical’ conversation.</p><p> </p><p>“Best friend from New York?” she guessed, coming down the stairs to join him.</p><p> </p><p>“That one, yeah,” he confirmed. “See, we have this sort of understanding, me and her, about… where we stand, and how it is, and… and I get all that, and I respect it a lot.” She nodded slowly, giving agreement. “The thing is that there’s this dance coming up. All of our other friends are going, and we’re going to go, too, except it’s just me, then her, and that’s it. I know dances can be kind of a big deal and all that, but… Say I wanted to take this friend of mine, no suggestions, no intentions, just two friends, going together, dancing, having a good time. What do you think?”</p><p> </p><p>Silence hung in the air, silence between them, shrouded in ambient sounds, as he watched her consider his hypothesis. It took a few seconds before she finally looked back up to him.</p><p> </p><p>“I think… you should just ask her…” she told him, and he nodded, smirking just as she did. He breathed in, resettling his stance as he looked at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, will you go to the dance with me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I guess so, but I do feel bad for that friend of yours,” she teased, and he laughed. “No, wait, I’m sensing she got over it. So, yes, I will go with you, Lucas,” she told him.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks… I mean that’s great…” he corrected himself, after hearing himself thanking her. She laughed, tapped his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re welcome,” she told him, still amused as she moved to go into the house, only to stop again at the top of the stairs. “What do you want to tell them, because the last time I handled it back in the gym I got the feeling I’d done it wrong or something.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it was nothing,” he assured her. “I trust you.” She smiled, nodding as she finally went in. He followed her, finding just as she did that the rest of them were all holed up in Dylan’s room, watching a video on his computer. When the two of them came in, five sets of eyes turned their way with great curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>“So good of you to join us,” Nadine told them, the curve of her brow making it sound more like ‘what were you guys up to?’</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Maya started, coming off as casual as one could, “We were just figuring how, between you and Zay, and Riley and Dylan and Asher, and now Joey and Rebecca, well… the easiest solution was just for Lucas and me to go together,” she explained, and behind her Lucas gave a nod.</p><p> </p><p>“As friends,” he added, as though it was necessary, which, going off of the look Maya turned on him, he realized now wasn’t necessary at all and instead made things worse. So, all in all, they were even.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, that’s the way to go,” Riley nodded, sounding, as Lucas feared, like she didn’t buy it at all; he couldn’t say that any of them bought it, not a one.</p><p> </p><p>“So, who’s ready to get trampled?” Maya asked, moving to pull Nadine to join her. “Riley?” she turned to the ‘retired’ player. <em>She</em> looked to Dylan as though she was reliving a certain near miss. “Come on, you are needed, girl up,” Maya presented her fist. Nadine, ready to join the campaign, stuck her own fist against Maya’s. All they needed was that third. In seconds, they watched the beastie emerge, and a third fist joined the pack.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s crush ‘em!” she roared, and Lucas, Zay, and Asher were as one as they took a step back with an audible shudder.</p><p> </p><p>“Just a little crushing,” Nadine suggested. “I do want him to be able to dance…” she said, as the boys watched the three of them head out to the hoop out front.</p><p> </p><p>“Dude, they’re kind of scary sometimes,” Asher declared.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Sometimes</em>?” Zay’s voice gave the smallest shiver. They had no choice but to follow and meet their fate.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas knew that whatever happened, he might not feel any pain at all. In a few weeks’ time, he was taking his friend to the dance.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0218"><h2>218. Their Dance With Preparation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>April had come and brought with it growing anticipation for the dance. The days had gone away, one by one, until there were none left. The day of the dance had arrived, and now all boys and girls looking to attend were readying themselves.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas, when <em>he</em> would be ready, would head out to the Garcia house, to meet his friends before they could all make their way to school together. It was probably a good thing they couldn’t see how nervous he was in that moment. He didn’t understand it himself. They had long decided what that night would be, and nothing had changed.</p><p> </p><p>But last weekend, when his mother – in all her inherent excitement – had asked to show him a bit of dancing, he had said yes almost instantly. He knew deep down that, had it been anything else, had it not been for this occasion, he would have cut and run so, so fast. Instead, he had submitted himself to receive his mother’s lessons, dancing around the house with her, much to his father’s amusement.</p><p> </p><p>And then, when he’d gone to take out his clothes, he had momentarily considered speaking his uncertainty within earshot of his mother, knowing that, if he did that, they’d be in the car and off to the store within minutes. He hadn’t done it, but he had seriously considered it.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing had changed… but that also meant that, as friends or not, he was going to that dance with Maya, and he wanted it all to go well, for him, for her, for… Well, he didn’t want to push her, but maybe it would help them in the long run?</p><p> </p><p>She was scared that it might all go wrong someday between them, and he got that… He didn’t want to lose her any more than she seemed to want to lose him, but didn’t you need to <em>have</em> something in order to lose it? And if you never had it then… you never had it. Maybe in time he would manage to point all of this out to her, but that would be breaking his promise.</p><p> </p><p>When he’d finished getting dressed, he’d moved out of his room to head downstairs and get going only to stop when he found his father stood at the top of the stairs. When he asked him what he was doing there, his father observed him for a moment before nodding to the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>“You have two options, Lucas. I can distract your mother while you sneak off, or I can let her see you like that, in which case she won’t let you go until she’s taken all her pictures, redid your hair the way she likes it…” he made a gesture as though to say ‘and so on and so forth.’ Lucas smiled, then held up one finger. “Wise choice, now, wait for me to do my thing and then you go. Have fun tonight, got it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” Lucas promised. His father moved to go, then paused and turned.</p><p> </p><p>“Try and take a couple pictures to appease her later,” he suggested, and Lucas agreed. So, off his father went, and when ‘the signal’ came, he hurried off as quickly and quietly as he could.</p><p> </p><p>On his way to Asher’s, he thought about the last few weeks, which had inevitably been greatly influenced by the coming of the dance. Zay and Nadine, with two thirds of a year as a couple under their belts, seemed to take this as an indication that it was their duty to look after the rest of them. Dylan’s injury was carrying on its road to recovery, better every day, going from his estimate, though both Riley and Asher would be ensuring that he didn’t try to dance that night. He might claim he was alright, but they knew better. And then Joey and Rebecca, well… Somewhere between his asking her to go and the night actually coming along for him to take her, they had been spending a lot more time together.</p><p> </p><p>Then Maya, and him… Everything was as it had been. They were in a great place, better than great, though there remained that invisible fence, and there was nothing to be done for it. But she was excited for tonight, he knew she was. She would have this way of saying something not <em>to</em> him but within his earshot and letting him understand she might as well <em>have</em> been talking to him. She was happy to go, her first proper school dance, in Texas… The way she went on, he didn’t think she intended to stop dancing until the music stopped, the lights went out, and they had to go or else they’d be locked in for the night.</p><p> </p><p>Arriving at Asher’s house, Lucas saw that he was the fifth one there: all the boys had arrived, and none of the girls. From what they’d heard, Nadine was at Rebecca’s house getting ready, and Riley was at Maya’s doing the same. They had been assured they would be there on time, and if they heard one comment about girls taking too long, then no one would be dancing that night, not just Dylan.</p><p> </p><p>So, they waited. Lucas asked Zay to take a picture of him. His friend was confused, but he did as he was asked and when he explained the reason for it, Zay understood, though at the same time declared Lucas had not been fair to his mother, who only cared about him.</p><p> </p><p>“How many pictures did your mother take?” Lucas guessed.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I didn’t keep count. With any luck, most of them will be blurry and out of focus.” They had a laugh, just as the doorbell rang.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0219"><h2>219. Their Dance With Encounters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The dress had been a gift from Shawn. He wasn’t there, but he had wanted to buy her dress for her once he’d found out about the dance. She hadn’t explicitly told him she was going with Lucas; she hadn’t let him in on the whole situation with him and her, unsure how he would react. Even so, she was almost sure he’d somehow figured it out, and it was giving her images of him somehow contacting Lucas and giving him that ‘talking to’ at a distance. She really needed to put those thoughts aside and focus on that night.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t expected to be this excited for the dance. Maybe it was that, initially, she hadn’t envisioned getting to go with him, and now that she knew that she was… Of course, it wasn’t anything more than them being friends, and Lucas had gotten that. He knew she wasn’t ready to jump, and she expected no less, even though… well, maybe to some point she could see something else in him, protected under the promise that he kept. Maybe she’d known it would be there all along because she knew… She couldn’t make him wait forever. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked at herself, turning about to let the violet dress spin around her with quick sways of the hips. That was a dress made for motion, and that was good, because she intended to dance a lot in it.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had insisted on doing her hair and so she’d let her. Seeing her mother be so happy to help had been all the convincing that she needed, even if she slightly regretted it once her mother’s chatter turned to tales of her experiences at school dances. Some of it was pure, innocent nostalgia, but some of it felt like parental warnings and cautionary tales, given right when she couldn’t walk away and ignore it because her hair was being held captive.</p><p> </p><p>She was already set by the time Riley and her family arrived, much to her best friend’s chagrin. Auggie had gone right to say hello to her mother; the two had really bonded in the few days he’d stayed with her while they were in New York.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had gone and helped Riley get ready. While she had her new dress as the one and only option, her friend had arrived with a trio of dresses and a bad case of indecision. Maya took no time in working through the clutter and pinpointing which one she should wear. Once she had it on, it was hair and all the rest.</p><p> </p><p>Even after nearly a year of the Matthews living in Austin with her, there were still times when Maya just had to stop and look and see how lucky she was. For a while she had to resolve herself to the knowledge that she and her best friend would go through so much of their teenage years – and the experiences connected to those – with most of the country sitting between them. She’d sort of resolved herself to it, but now… now all that was different. Riley was here, and here <em>they</em> were, getting ready to go to the school dance.</p><p> </p><p>Riley talked on and on about how she and the boys had worked out a bit of a system to balance their time either sitting with Dylan or dancing with Asher. She had wanted so much to find a way to let Dylan dance, but she knew it wouldn’t be wise. She kept snapping to that fall he’d taken, something that happened so fast and didn’t seem like it could have caused so much damage, and yet it had.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, once she had moved off that subject, the next logical leap was to ask her how great it would be for her to go to that dance with Lucas. She still hadn’t told her about New York and the conversation after they’d gotten back, but Riley wasn’t so good at pretending like she didn’t know <em>something</em> was going on. If Maya was ever going to tempt fate and shenanigans, it was not going to be right before this dance.</p><p> </p><p>So finally, off they’d gone, Riley and her. They ended up running into Nadine and Rebecca on the way up the street, and so the four girls descended upon the Garcia house together. One by one, they split off from the pack, Nadine going to Zay, Rebecca to Joey, and Riley to Dylan and Asher. This left only her… and him.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t get her heart going, to see him standing there, seeing the look on his face when he saw <em>her</em>… It all felt like a dream, but it was complete reality.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s the matter, Huckleberry, never seen a girl in a dress before?” she teased, walking up to him. He looked like he had something stuck in his throat, and she had a solid feeling that something was a compliment. “You can talk, right?” she waved her hand in his face, and he blinked, smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t be breaking any rules if I say how good you look tonight?” he asked, sort of conspiratorial.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll allow it,” she grinned, maybe to hide the flush. “You don’t look so bad yourself. Almost feels inappropriate to call you anything but ‘Mr. Friar.’” He cringed, laughing. “But I won’t, because then I’ll sound like a teacher. So, Lucas it is.” He nodded. “Wait until you see how much this thing spins,” she pointed to the skirt of her dress.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait,” he assured her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0220"><h2>220. Their Dance With Decorations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ride to the school, nine of them gone off together on a bus, had been crowded in conversation, as all of them felt anxious to get to the dance. It wasn’t even so much the dance they spoke of, they just couldn’t keep still or quiet. And as they rode on, others from their class would show up on the bus, to the point where Lucas guessed the driver and the rest of the passengers must have been so glad when all of them got off.</p><p> </p><p>The great cluster of friends and classmates had moved up to the school, up the steps and through the doors, finding already that the path to the gym was marked with some decorations. None of that would compare to the display they found once they made it into the gym.</p><p> </p><p>The theme seemed as though it must have been sponsored by the astronomy club. The ceiling looked as though they had pulled the roof away and given them the sky and all its stars. It was everywhere, and every last one of them was in awe as they walked through and took it all in.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, so that’s why Anna and Mei were covered in glitter all last week,” Zay commented of two of the people on the decorating committee.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think there’s any left out there. All the glitter in Austin is in this room,” Maya chuckled before tapping Asher’s arm and nodding to Riley. “Watch her out there, dance partner,” she told him, miming her best friend’s dancing while staring at the ceiling in awe.</p><p> </p><p>“Way ahead of you,” Asher promised.</p><p> </p><p>“Not where she’s involved,” Maya promised right back.</p><p> </p><p>They spotted Mr. Matthews, one of their chaperones for the night. Of course, he had driven so he’d managed to arrive before them. Still he came to see all of them, as though his crossing into teacher mode meant that he forgot he’d seen his daughter and her friend in their dresses before, as he greeted and complimented the group standing before him.</p><p> </p><p>“Dylan, I’m sorry you’re still unable to get out there, but if you’d like, I can place you at the refreshments’ table. I don’t know anyone more welcoming than you,” he smiled, much to Riley’s complaint. “You can go, too, honey,” he assured her, and her smile returned.</p><p> </p><p>“Only until there’s dancing,” she insisted, leading Dylan off to the table.</p><p> </p><p>“At a dance? I think it shouldn’t be long,” the others heard him say.</p><p> </p><p>And there was some music playing already, though it felt more like ambiance, instead of leaving the place in silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well fancy meeting you here…” They looked up at the familiar sound and saw that it was indeed…</p><p> </p><p>“Mom,” Maya blinked. “What are you doing here?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Cory asked me to be a chaperone, too. I wanted it to be a surprise, which I’m realizing now might not have been the way to go, going from the awkward little look on your face. Oh, but don’t worry, it’ll be fine, really. I’ll keep out of your hair – unless I have to step in – but I never got to do this before, and I wanted to.” After a moment, Maya smiled, looking as though she might have hugged her mother if it hadn’t felt strange to do it here.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad you’re here,” she said instead, then seeing the camera in her hand, “Is that Shawn’s?”</p><p> </p><p>“I may have promised him some pictures,” her mother confirmed. “So, hey, while I have all… most of you here…” she held up the camera. Maya shook her head, then turned and called Riley and Dylan back.</p><p> </p><p>“All of us,” she declared. When Joey and Rebecca made to move out of the frame, Maya wasn’t the only one to keep them where they were. “All of us,” she repeated. And so that was the shot they got – shots, because Katy would not stop herself – the nine of them in a heap together, smiles and laughs, colorful dresses and clean jackets and all.</p><p> </p><p>When this was done, Dylan and Riley went off again, Asher following them. Joey and Rebecca went to say hello to their other friends. And Zay and Nadine went their own way… They gave no reason, but if they thought neither Lucas nor Maya could understand their play, they were far off point.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean they don’t know, do they?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever they think they know they can’t know what they think they know. I <em>know</em> what they think they know, and I <em>know</em> they don’t know what we know…” Maya declared. There was a pause.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes?” Lucas guessed, confused, which made her laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Just be cool, Huckleberry,” she told him. He straightened up his jacket, and she gave him a nod. “Yeah, something like that. When the music kicked on for real, she looked at him. “Shall we?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0221"><h2>221. Their Dance With Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At first it seemed easier to focus on what was happening around them than to actually stop and look at each other and just dance along. Sometimes Lucas would feel, maybe because he was older than the rest of them, that he needed to look after them, and for reasons more to do with who she had been growing up, Maya tended to feel the same toward the people who had taken her in and made her feel appreciated and cared for.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, look,” she tapped his arm, looking at Nadine and Zay, dancing now with what could only be called ‘wild abandon.’ He saw and had to laugh. “Reminds me of that time at Chubbie’s, trying to get Vanessa to notice him. That didn’t really turn out the way we expected.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know about that. I mean, even when she first came around and became our friend, there was always something, you know? So, it just kind of makes sense now, doesn’t it?” he looked back at her, catching in her eyes how maybe the events he described were not exclusive to ‘Tall Z and Little Z’ out there. They blinked, breaking out of the thought to return to their gazing.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, Joey…” Maya frowned, talking to herself as she saw that he and Rebecca were finally headed out to dance. “Hope you guys managed to show him enough,” she told Lucas. For weeks, he and the other guys had been helping the perpetually awkward boy to discover motion.</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t so bad,” Lucas pointed out. “The trick with him is motivation. Once he has that, he’ll do anything, whether it’s learning to dance, or… asking girls out.” He said nothing more, though Maya could more than easily have finished that sentence.</p><p> </p><p>He was right about the dancing, as they discovered. You wouldn’t have known this was timid little Joey Garcia if you saw him, right up until you saw his face, as that look never entirely left his features. But then he would be focused on Rebecca, smiling at him, multi-colored hair flying about, and his features had never felt so relaxed.</p><p> </p><p>“Think it’ll work out for them?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I hope so,” Maya smiled, looking at them, though in a moment her gaze went past them and landed on to the trio sat at the drinks table. They didn’t look bored, and they were having a rousing talk together, but Maya could see a pair of feet underneath, moving along like all they wanted to do was dance already. “Hey, Lucas?” she turned to him.</p><p> </p><p>A minute later, the two of them were sat with Dylan, while Riley pulled – or yanked, really – Asher to the dance floor. Soon, the two friends were hopping along, while their benched friend remained behind but also with others to keep him company.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry you can’t go out there,” Maya told Dylan.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s okay,” he shrugged. “Really. I’m going to be back on a team in the fall, when we get to high school. And being careful now will make that happen.” It made sense, they knew, as much as they knew that, for all his talk, he was really glad they’d come and sat with him. Though after a minute or so, in the middle of their observations on other pairs across the room, he’d stopped and looked at them. “You guys haven’t danced yet,” he said. “Go, get out there.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, Dylan, we’re staying right now,” Lucas told him, as Maya nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“No way, you need to go and dance, and I won’t say another word until you do,” he vowed, clamping his mouth shut in demonstration before crossing his arms over himself to show his determination. It looked more amusing than demanding, but it got the message across. Lucas looked to Maya, as she looked to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, if you’ll be like that,” Maya told Dylan with a ‘glare,’ before getting up. “Come on, let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right behind you,” Lucas followed.</p><p> </p><p>It was hardly the kind of dance anyone would call structured or bound to any steps, but they moved on to the dance floor, by which point she was already letting that violet skirt of hers sway about. He just looked at her, and she looked at him, and he held his hand out to her, and she took it with a grin, letting it spin her about, letting the skirt fly along as far as it was able to, making her break into giggles. Now they could call this dance begun.</p><p> </p><p>The eight of them on that floor could not have looked happier to be where they were, or to have their friends around them. The one thing that could have made it better of course would have been if one of their own wasn’t sidelined. But maybe for that reason it seemed as though they danced harder, like each of them was dancing in his honor as much as for their own enjoyment. It was a rule of their group, as timeless as their confidence in secrets, that no one would ever be left behind.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0222"><h2>222. Their Dance With Energy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Out there on that dance floor, in that moment, Maya didn’t feel there could be a trouble in the world. She wasn’t thinking about the future and what it may or may not hold, for her, for them… She was here, and he was here, there was music all around them and they were dancing, the cowboy and her… and she was so happy that nothing could touch her. She was surrounded by friends, her violet dress was spinning, and Lucas was there, dancing with her, smiling so much, she knew he had to be feeling that same joy she did.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, so tell me the truth,” she spoke over the music, which meant she was almost shouting, “Where did you develop these moves? Rodeo?” she joked, and he smirked, shrugging.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s not much to learn,” he pointed out. They were mostly just hopping along, weren’t they? “If you want to see moves, I’ve got those, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yeah? Let’s see those then,” she requested with curiosity. Lucas happily obliged, treating her to what had to be exaggerated dancing for her benefit. Either way, she laughed so much she thought she might lose her breath, nearly lost her balance, too, but she got both of those back as he resumed his normal sort of dancing.</p><p> </p><p>“Did I pass?” he asked her, still with that great smile on.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, flying colors,” she granted him thumbs up. “If anyone asks me, I will tell them, ‘That cowboy can dance,’” she promised.</p><p> </p><p>“You know I’m not actually a cowboy, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, you are,” she insisted. “You are to me.” He took this in, seemed to accept it.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright then, City Girl, let’s see what you’ve got.” She ‘gasped’ at the challenge, but that did not stop her from following this with a confident squaring of the shoulders before proceeding with some wild dancing of her own. Her dress came in very handy as she gave her bit of performance, which was finished off with a flick of the chin as though to say, ‘so there!’ He nodded, clapping appreciatively. “Fine, you win,” he conceded, as though there had ever been any doubt how this would end.</p><p> </p><p>“Call it a tie,” she decided, not going so far as to say aloud how, even on a fictitious podium, she’d rather stand with him and not over him.</p><p> </p><p>The next song was just as energetic as the last, and neither of them showed any sign of exhaustion just yet, so they carried on. Maya had sworn to make this dance be that – a dance – and she intended to follow through. Lucas was with her on this, he’s said he would be, and she trusted him, here as anywhere. With a new song, they had tried to mix things up a bit, and with the one after that they did the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he told her on the fourth song, “Your mom’s watching us.” She turned to see, and there she was alright, trying not to be so obvious and failing miserably.</p><p> </p><p>“Was she filming?” Maya asked, seeing the phone in her hand. Her mother did have that look on her face she would get sometimes, looking at her, the one that said ‘my baby girl is growing up’ and indicated more than anything how she couldn’t believe just how fast this was happening.</p><p> </p><p>“I think so, yeah,” Lucas told her. “Maybe for Shawn?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your voice didn’t even shake or anything,” she gave him a look and he chuckled. “But yeah, probably.” With that, she shrugged, and they got back to dancing. It might have been hard to ignore the possibility of whatever she was doing now ending up in a video, but then she only needed to get back into the right headspace and shut out the rest.</p><p> </p><p>A fourth song turned into a fifth, and finally it seemed a break was on the horizon for them.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so here’s the deal. After this one, we spend one song sitting back there, with something to drink and then we’re back, yeah?” Maya suggested.</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds good,” he agreed. “So, let’s make this a good one?” he added, and she grinned; he’d read her mind.</p><p> </p><p>If her mother did record all this, Maya hoped both she and Shawn would get a laugh off of it. She knew she did, and Lucas did. By the time the song ended, they both sort of let out a breath before weaving their way off the dance floor and toward Dylan, who handed them each a cup.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to go outside, get some air?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, but let’s hurry up or our chaperones might not think it’s a good idea,” she nodded across the room to her mother, and to Mr. Matthews not far away.</p><p> </p><p>Quiet as ever, they snuck out of the gym, breathing in the uncrowded hall before making their way outside. They could still hear the music here, though maybe one song out would turn into two if they lost track of time.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0223"><h2>223. Their Dance With Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They sat at the top of the steps, rather than halfway down as they usually did. They were hardly ever in this place, at this time of day, and to Maya it felt sort of strange… and sort of great. She couldn’t stop looking up at the sky, at the building behind them. Then when she looked back down to her cup, a bit dizzy for a second, she turned to look at Lucas and found him smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she laughed. He shrugged, looked up at the sky.</p><p> </p><p>“The decorations are nice in there, but it doesn’t beat this,” he declared. She knew that wasn’t what he’d been smiling about, but she chose to ignore it and focus on what they had.</p><p> </p><p>“It really doesn’t,” she agreed, looking back up with him. “Kind of reminds me of that day last summer when we were all camping… Don’t get me wrong, the fishing was okay, but that… that was the best part.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah…” he replied with a sigh as he recalled it. “It was.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so this summer we need to go back, we have to. Riley’s here this time, and Farkle, and Smackle, too. We <em>have</em> to,” she declared.</p><p> </p><p>“Then we will,” Lucas agreed happily. She knew he was looking forward to the summer as much as she was. The both of them had the privilege of acting as hosts to their friends out of New York for a full six weeks, and though it was still almost two months away, they had been getting ready to welcome them, making sure they would have all they needed. It had been the source of many a conversation over texts, and would no doubt continue to be in the weeks to come.</p><p> </p><p>“I wonder if Smackle will actually want to go fishing,” Maya smirked, thinking of the girl out on a boat. She wouldn’t force her, not if she didn’t want to do it, but if there was any wiggle room at all…</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I</em> wonder if Farkle will want the guest room or if I should bring the other bed in my room, so he doesn’t have to be on his own.”</p><p> </p><p>“Smackle already asked if she’d be staying in my room, she sounds excited about it, so that’s something.”</p><p> </p><p>“Might be best if Farkle stays with me or my mom might go and check up on him every night.”</p><p> </p><p>The back and forth finally knocked Maya out with giggles, which were soon buried into her cup. And rather than let her ride it out, Lucas stoked that wave of laughter, treating her with an imitation of his mother with one check in with their guest and then another. The giggles expanded until Maya had to hold her cup away from herself for fear of spilling its contents on to her dress. It was a wonder she didn’t roll right down the steps. Lucas must have been concerned over that possibility, as she noticed his arm hung in mid air, ready to catch her if she tipped forward.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she assured him, slowly regaining control, though breath was still a work in progress.</p><p> </p><p>“You good?” he asked, trying not to laugh along and end up starting her again. She took a drink, nodding in reply.</p><p> </p><p>The quiet of the night air took over, letting the music rejoin their ears from inside. Neither of them could say for sure if one song had gone by, or two, or more.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to go back in?” he asked her. He was ready to get dancing again, keeping up his promise to stick with her and make good on this dance for as long as they could, as long as the gym would be open to them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah,” she got up, downing the rest of her drink and tossing the cup in the trashcan by the door. “I think this one’s almost done,” she said, listening to the music for a few beats more. He did, too, coming to stand with her. “Gonna break out those ‘moves’ again?” she asked him, imitating a bit of what he’d done earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, is that how we’re going to play it now?” he gave a look as though to say ‘game on.’</p><p> </p><p>“Gee, here I thought we already were,” she countered in a similar tone. He held out his hand to go and lead her back inside, just as the song ended. And then, as she reached out her hand to place into his, the new song began, and they both came to a standstill.</p><p> </p><p>The tune was as departed from the previous fare as they could have asked for. Until then, nothing but the kind of song that would have them aimlessly hopping around each other, but now… now here was a song that simply called for holding, for swaying…</p><p> </p><p>“Then again…” he started to say, meaning to sit back down, but he looked at her, and she didn’t say anything. He’d promised they would dance through the night, and friends kept promises, didn’t they? But going back in there now, after being out here all this time, wouldn’t it just draw eyes – and Katy Hart’s phone camera – right on them? “Here’s as good a place as any, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she asked, confused. He raised out his hand as he’d done a moment ago.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, Maya. Let’s dance.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0224"><h2>224. Their Dance With Possibilities</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her hesitation felt endless. Inside, both of them had much too many thoughts running through their minds than the seconds would have allowed. In <em>his</em> mind, there was the growing assumption that he’d overstepped a boundary, tried to hop the invisible fence. In hers, the Rebel and the Loyalist were hard at battle once again.</p><p> </p><p>But then, a truce, a momentary agreement. She had known this moment would come when she’d agreed to go with him, hadn’t she? It was a school dance, and they weren’t ten anymore. It was just going to be a dance, nothing to worry about, right?</p><p> </p><p>So, she gave her hand to him. When he felt her palm against his, it felt like he’d been turned to stone for a beat, and she’d made him alive again. He closed his hand with hers, before stepping to bridge the gap between them just enough, feeling at the very least that he wasn’t the only one of them who was really nervous all of a sudden. His free hand came to rest at her waist, and he was sure he’d gulped just a bit. And Maya, oh, she couldn’t even meet his eye as <em>her</em> free hand came to sit on his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>In that moment, he had never been so glad for his mother’s crash course of dance lessons and for the fact that he’d actually let her show him. She had vowed that by the time she was done with him, it would all come naturally to him. And she’d been right. As soon as he’d come into hold with Maya, his feet began to move and, even more of a relief, she followed right along with him.</p><p> </p><p>The motion seemed to cut past that initial moment of nervousness, and when she breathed out and gave a cautious smile, he smiled back. He didn’t know what mystified him the most, as they came to weave along the steps, that he was remembering what he’d been shown and expanding on it, that <em>she</em> was just able to follow along no matter what he did, or just plainly that he and she were dancing together.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to speak, but he couldn’t think of any words that would have been right in that moment. So, he said nothing, and he let the music do the talking, as he looked at the blonde there in front of him. She hadn’t managed to look up at him yet, and he didn’t expect her to, didn’t need her to. She was here with him, and though he knew this wouldn’t be anything more than what it was, he knew it was something he would not soon forget.</p><p> </p><p>If he could have told her now, told her everything he felt in having her dancing with him like this, oh… He would have let the words come from him with as little hesitation as he’d needed when it came to the steps he’d learned from his mother.</p><p> </p><p>When the song had come to an end, for a few moments more, they danced in silence, and slowly they came to a stop. She still held to him, and he hadn’t let go either. She was going to have to look up at him sooner or later, wasn’t she? Was it making her nervous?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he asked, carefully. Her hands slipped away, from his shoulder here, from <em>his</em> hand there, and so he did the same. “Are you okay?” The last time he’d needed to know wasn’t so long ago, and still it didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel like it could have been minutes ago.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, yeah, I…” she took a breath, looked up at him, gave him a smile, though he could see she was trying not to show what was going through her head. The one time that had really worked on him was after the Denver trip, when she had been angry at them. She wasn’t angry now. No, she was the opposite of angry, but this was a problem in and of itself, wasn’t it? “Where… where did you learn to dance like that?” she asked after a moment, maybe to restart conversation, restart normalcy.</p><p> </p><p>“My mother,” he revealed. That did it. She laughed all over again, and now he did, too, and thankfully the tension evaporated. When Maya asked if this was true, he confirmed that it was, telling her all about the sessions back at his house as they walked back into the school halls.</p><p> </p><p>“Well she did good, you… you both did,” she told him, and he smiled again, thanking her.</p><p> </p><p>They found the gym back in the full swing of another upbeat song, making it seem almost as though they’d had some kind of collective dream and imagined this slow dance outside the school. It didn’t seem right that everyone was back to aimless hopping.</p><p> </p><p>“Should we go see how Dylan’s doing?” he suggested, and she agreed with a nod. They reintegrated the gym crowd and came to the drinks table, only to find some kind of party seemed to have kicked up in their absence, as Riley and Asher sat back with their sidelined friend, along with Joey, Rebecca, Zay and Nadine. When the others saw the two of them coming, they reacted all at once, asking where they’d gotten off to.</p><p> </p><p>“Air, we got air,” Maya replied at once, turning a look to him, which he assumed was her telling him to back her up on the story. Instead, she added, “Then we could just hear the music out there, so we kept on dancing. It was less crowded out there. And hey, Lucas has got some moves, don’t you, Huckleberry?” He knew what she was getting at, and with a sigh he revealed to them how his mother had taught him.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, now this I have to see,” Zay declared, as Lucas and Maya moved to sit with them.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s not a puppet,” Maya told him, making Lucas smirk.</p><p> </p><p>For a while they all sat there, the others narrating some of the more comical moments they would have missed out on. It wasn’t until Maya’s mother came their way, wondering what they were all doing there that the four pairs stood and headed back out to dance.</p><p> </p><p>The night came to an end not long after this. Lucas was to be picked up by his father, so he waited as the others started to leave. Those who remained, waiting for their own rides, or – in Maya and Riley’s cases – for their dance chaperones to exit, came to gather midway down the steps as they so often did.</p><p> </p><p>“So, we danced as much as we could,” he told Maya at his side. She nodded and confirmed that indeed they had. “You had fun, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, the best,” she vowed. “Thank you,” she said, and he nodded. “I mean, really… thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re welcome,” he told her. “Really, really.” She laughed… he couldn’t say how many times she had done so that night, but every one of them was his favorite sound.</p><p> </p><p>His father arrived, and he had to leave the two New York girls sat on the steps, Riley’s head resting on Maya’s shoulder like she would fall asleep at any moment. He just stared back at Maya in that violet dress one more time before climbing into the car.</p><p> </p><p>“So, how was it?” his father asked as they drove off. He didn’t reply. “That good, huh?” his father went on, and Lucas looked at him, blinking.</p><p> </p><p>“It… it was great,” he told his father. “I danced a lot,” he reported.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s good,” his father chuckled. “Any toes crushed on you or her?” he went on to tease, but Lucas shook his head. All had been perfect, and he would remember it, but as far as his parents went, that was really all they needed to know.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0225"><h2>225. Their Party For Year's End</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before they knew it, the year was over. Eighth grade, middle school, it was all over, and summer was about to begin. Maya didn’t know what was more amazing to her, that she was headed into high school in a couple months, or that she’d completed two school years in Texas already. She still remembered sitting in Mr. Matthews’ old class in New York, when it was just her, and Riley, and Farkle. But then she would look at pictures from back then and… they looked so small. Time didn’t lie.</p><p> </p><p>She had to wonder what summer would bring them. Obviously, some things she did know and, really, she could not wait for those, but other things… other things just could not be planned. Their being in school had a way of occupying a lot of their time, but if this summer would be like the last one – and all signs pointed to yes – then they would all see so much more of each other. And if that was the case, then it would be more of seeing Lucas, hanging out…</p><p> </p><p>Since the night of the dance, they had continued much in the way they had always done since New York. She didn’t want to let it all become routine, but there was no way around it, was there? She wasn’t ready, she couldn’t make that jump, the battle was endless in her head. But they couldn’t just keep to that sort of holding pattern, so they just had to find a way to carry on, and they had done it. But it was summer now, and she didn’t know how that would go. Maybe the battle would be won… Maybe it would be lost forever.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t worrying herself over that though, not today. Today was a day long awaited. Today, they would celebrate the end of middle school, a party they had delayed, the better to include two more guests, and this was what would make this day the most special one. They were on their way now, driving to the airport to pick up Farkle Minkus and Isadora Smackle, their summer guests.</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t have to all be there. Maya and her mother had Smackle to pick up, and Lucas and his parents would pick up Farkle. And of course, Riley and her family would be there to welcome both New Yorkers. But then the two of them had become their friends, even at a distance, and so Zay, Nadine, Dylan and Asher were also coming, driven by the visiting Kyle Orlando.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had been particularly nervous about hosting Smackle for the next six weeks. What if she didn’t like it there? Maya wondered if her mother was worrying over removing the girl from her home for so long because of how it had affected <em>her</em> when they’d come here. It might have sounded silly, but it was also a bit Maya’s fault, as she’d explained to her mother about Smackle, and what she was like. She’d told her about the Asperger’s and all that, though what seemed to be the root of <em>this</em> issue was her mother herself, thinking she might be too much, that she would put the girl ill at ease.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be fine,” Maya had promised her mother.</p><p> </p><p>The way he told her about it, Lucas was having issues of his own with the anticipation for Farkle’s joining them. <em>Those</em> issues Maya had been fairly familiar with already, though the closer they came to the arrival date, it all came into some more perspective. As he’d told her, his parents had wanted more children, only they’d never had them, so it was all him. Now, with the arrival of Farkle, even if only for weeks, it almost felt like they were preparing for the arrival of someone more permanently bound to them. Lucas had told her how it all felt sweet, sure, but also a bit exaggerated. Maya had teased him, saying if he wanted to keep Farkle there as his brother, she wasn’t about to oppose.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, his parents might have something to say about that,” he had pointed out, but she’d only shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>They were all so anxious to have the two of them there, though they did know they couldn’t let the summer get away from them because they had their guests. They intended to keep on practicing for basketball, the better to ready themselves in hopes of making the high school teams. They had to help Dylan most of all, who had all these inactive months to make up for. They could see just a bit of apprehension in him, afraid of hurting himself again, but they would have him out of that soon enough, wouldn’t they?</p><p> </p><p>As they rode in the car, her mother and her, Maya thought of all this and so much more. Shawn would be back to see them again soon, and there would be Zay’s family party, and the proper return of movie nights…</p><p> </p><p>And then the radio, in a sudden betrayal, bringing distraction in its wake, left her to hear the familiar notes of a song. She hadn’t been able to hear it since April without recalling how they’d danced, Lucas and her on the front steps of what was now their former school. And just as it had done since then, hearing it brought her back to that moment, standing and moving with him, one hand in hers, the other cautiously at her waist. She remembered feeling like she might fly, but really feeling like all she wanted was to lay her head against his shoulder, just saying… stay with me, let’s jump. But she’d never gathered up the courage, and so the moment had ended, and time had moved on.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0226"><h2>226. Their Party For Arrivals</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the lot of them gathered in wait at the gate, one might have thought some celebrity or important figure was awaited. Well, maybe that was just what it was as far as they were concerned, though passersby might not think the same once they saw that the large group was waiting on a pair of unaccompanied minors.</p><p> </p><p>To their hosts and friends though, there could not have been a more anticipated arrival, and when the two of them appeared, they were greeted by this set of very thrilled people.</p><p> </p><p>Maya and Riley were the first to come forward of course, the two of them embracing their Farkle friend at once. The trio all began to speak at once, forcing them to stop and start over once they pulled apart.</p><p> </p><p>“Farkle, you’re here!” Riley beamed.</p><p> </p><p>“Welcome to Texas, Minkus,” Maya laughed at the combined sounds.</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t believe I’m finally here,” Farkle breathed.</p><p> </p><p>“He means because of the turbulence,” Smackle cut in matter-of-factly, though there was the slightest hint of the trauma this had caused present in her voice. The girls turned to her, looking to Farkle again for a moment at this discovery before moving to embrace her, too. Smackle held to them, calm as she ever seemed.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Lucas came up to Farkle now, deciding in that moment to hug his friend and summer roommate. Farkle, as with a lot of things, it seemed, looked as surprised as he looked happy. “Really glad you guys are here,” he told him, then in a whisper, “Don’t be scared to tell my Mom if she hugs too tight.” The other boy barely had time to blink before he came face to face with Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar, the Mrs. being the one who owned the encounter.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re Farkle,” she spoke with that winning smile of hers. Lucas said nothing to the fact that his mother, upon hearing his name for the first time, had been both mystified and a tiny bit tickled for several weeks. He was foreseeing, sooner or later, that she would ask him about the origin of that name. “We’ve been hearing a lot about you, young man, it is a pleasure to meet you. Now you’ll be our guest this summer, but I want you to consider our home your home, alright? If you have any want or need, you just let us know and we’ll see to it. If you’re hungry, or thirsty, you take what you want. We have a good bed set for you in Lucas’ room, you’ll sleep this flight right off.”</p><p> </p><p>Farkle had just looked at her as she spoke, and Lucas sort of bit back a smile, one he found in equal measure in his father’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you… Mrs. Friar… Happy to be here,” he finally spoke, and received a new hug for his troubles. He turned a look to Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, he can’t breathe,” Lucas told her, so she released.</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime, Katy Hart came up to meet her own summer guest. Maybe after seeing the force that was Melinda Friar, Smackle looked the tiniest bit concerned when the blond woman approached. Maya had told her plenty about her mother, some of it at Smackle’s own request. And Maya had been honest, she’d told her how her mother, long seeking to be an actress but having worked these past near two years believed the scenes – happily so – was still very much one with a noted flare of the dramatic. She was not quite the woman she once was, before they’d come to Texas, but in all the parts that counted… well, it could go either way, really.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey… Isadora…” her mother smiled, just a bit uncertainly, watching the girl for any cues. “That’s a beautiful name.”</p><p> </p><p>“Most people call me Smackle.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is it alright if I just call you Isadora?” Katy asked, and after a moment the girl nodded. “Well, we’re going to have a great summer, three of us girls, aren’t we?” she looked from her to her daughter and back. Maya smiled, thinking of it. “It’s like Melinda said here. You’re home, as long as you’re with us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” Smackle nodded, giving a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle had been greeted by the rest of the Matthews family as this went on, and once all parents had had their turn of meeting the arriving pair, the four who had held back all this time were finally able to step up, joining Maya, Lucas, and Riley in welcoming them. Zay, Nadine, Asher and Dylan had come into this day brandishing small signs with the names of Farkle Minkus and Isadora Smackle traced out on them in the way they’d seen in airport scenes in movies.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle and Smackle discovered here that there would be a party, as much for all of their middle school graduation as for their arrival in Austin. They would head off first with the Friars and Harts respectively to drop off their bags and settle in a bit before heading to the Matthews house, so the rest of them would leave them here and see them again there.</p><p> </p><p>Now off they went, first to get their luggage, which was an ordeal in and of itself, and then to their cars. All was packed in, and then four cars took off from the airport. In a sense, though the party was meant to be that for them, taking off with their arriving guests and heading home with them truly felt like summer was beginning.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0227"><h2>227. Their Party For Guests</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was really the first time they were alone, he realized. Him and Farkle, in the backseat of his father’s car… They’d had conversations over the past few months, been growing as friends, but this felt different, now that they were actually in the same place, and he felt… happy? He couldn’t compare this friendship with the years that Farkle had with Maya, with Riley. He imagined the gladness he’d gotten in being reunited with him must be some small fraction of what the girls had gotten, brought back together, with each other or with the boy now sat at his side. It told him to enjoy these next six weeks while he had them.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle was looking out the window as they drove, curiosity clear in him. In all their talks, he’d already shown himself wanting to see so many things, and Lucas was more than ready to lead them through this.</p><p> </p><p>The further they got from the airport, and the more they got into the area where he lived, Lucas started to point things out to Farkle. Here was the park, there was the movie theater. Here was Asher’s uncle’s diner, there was their school… well, their former school… Finally, they came on to his street and up the driveway and to the house.</p><p> </p><p>“Here we are,” his mother spoke up, sounding as though she had forced herself to keep quiet, throughout the drive, but now that they’d arrived… “I’ll go ahead and get you boys some snacks, you go on and get settled in.” And she was off.</p><p> </p><p>His father had offered to help with the bags, but Lucas assured him that they had it handled. He and Farkle got everything and headed into the house. Up the stairs they went and into Lucas’ room – their room now. It had looked strange for weeks, the two beds there when he was the only one sleeping in that room, but now that Farkle was here, setting his things out on the second bed, it made perfect sense. What made less sense…</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s from my mom,” Lucas pointed to the flowers on the nightstand. “She brought them in first thing this morning, said she wanted you to feel welcomed.” Thankfully, Farkle only smiled and nodded at this. “So,” Lucas looked around the room, “I made space in the closet and a couple drawers, and there’s the nightstand, and you can fit your bags under the bed once they’re empty,” he explained.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I’m nervous, too,” Farkle said in response to all this, and Lucas blinked before letting out a breath and a chuckle. “I’ve never shared my room either.”</p><p> </p><p>“Happy to do it,” Lucas vowed, and Farkle nodded; he knew, and he was happy to be there, too.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas helped him to unpack his bags. He already had thoughts of his mother coming in while they were off at the Matthews’ house and rearranging everything all as neat as she would have it. He’d have to hope she had enough self-control not to go messing in a stranger’s belongings, but well… It was really anyone’s guess at this point.</p><p> </p><p>For now, they were done, so they headed back downstairs. As they went, Lucas completed his tour of the house for Farkle, ending in the kitchen where, to no surprise at all, his mother had gone and made snacks that could almost have been full meals, complete with glasses of her ‘prize winning lemonade.’ They grabbed what they wanted, and Lucas took them back to his – their room, so not to have her hovering about.</p><p> </p><p>“She doesn’t seem so bad,” Farkle declared. “She just cares a lot.” Lucas smiled; he guessed that was sort of it.</p><p> </p><p>As they ate and drank, they were mostly quiet at first, as Farkle took in the room again, now that he was settled in. This was going to be his home for all these weeks. When Lucas thought about that big room where he and the guys had slept back in New York, before Farkle had arrived, he had been just a bit concerned that the boy would find his smaller room too small. But he didn’t; he looked content.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya drew that,” he pointed to the sheet stuck on the wall over his desk. Lucas looked at it, nodded with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“That was the day we met, at school. Did she tell you about that?” She hadn’t. “Zay was going to be a guide for a new student coming in. I asked if I could take his place because I wanted to show… I could be trusted again, I guess. Maya was that student, so I became her guide.” He looked at that drawing, and he could still remember that moment like it had only just happened. He remembered her so quiet in that moment, still dealing with her relocation. She had opened up so much since then, but that quiet girl was still in her, wasn’t she? He could see her sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>“When did she give that to you?” Farkle asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It was a few months after she came… January… She hadn’t shown us her drawings before. But she showed them to me…” He remembered the feeling he’d had, seeing himself, and their friends, seeing how much they all had come to mean to her. “I convinced her to show the others, too, and when it was over… she gave me that,” he pointed to the image.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a nice place for it,” Farkle said, sounding like he’d got some thought in him, but whatever it was, he did not feel the need to share it.</p><p> </p><p>“We should get going,” Lucas told him when they had finished their snacks. They would have headed out on their own to the Matthews house for the party, but then it <em>was</em> also his middle school graduation party, so his parents would drive them.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0228"><h2>228. Their Party For Settling In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The way they’d talked over the weeks, Maya felt it was almost to be expected that Smackle would know every inch of the city before she so much as set foot in it. Looking at her as they drove home from the airport it certainly seemed that way. The girl sat there peacefully, looking out the window the way one might driving through their hometown. She looked happy to be there, and that’s what mattered to her host.</p><p> </p><p>When they came up to the house, Maya went and helped Smackle to get her bags, along with her mother. She had brought several books, by the weight of some of those bags. Once they made it into the house and into her room, Maya took Smackle through for a tour. That was the one place she couldn’t have researched before.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t have a backyard at my house back home,” Smackle told her as they went out there.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we didn’t either,” Maya replied, picking up the basketball sitting in the grass, tossing it up and catching, tossing and catching; it was a habit, ever since she’d joined the team. Smackle watched, eyes following the ball’s motion as Maya played with it. “Do you play?”</p><p> </p><p>“Me? Why?” Smackle frowned, like she couldn’t see why she would. Maya chuckled. Now she was curious if by the end of the summer that might change.</p><p> </p><p>So, they went back into the house, the ball left back where it had been found. The second bed had come from Zay’s aunt, who had no need of it throughout the summer. It was still a wonder to Maya that they’d been able to fit it in her room without it feeling like the place was overcrowded all of a sudden. They’d even gotten a small set of drawers for Smackle to use, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Hope this is all okay,” Maya told Smackle as she picked up her first bag and got it open. The packing was so precise, nothing had moved, even after being tossed around on and off the plane. It didn’t surprise her so much, but it was sort of startling. Maya had a feeling the next six weeks would be equally interesting.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be like having a sleepover every night of every week. I’ve never even had one, except for that night at the museum or at Farkle’s when you all came over and then you and the others went and snuck out,” Smackle reflected as she went on unpacking and putting her things away.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yeah, that,” Maya frowned to herself, moving to sit on her own bed once she saw her new roommate had things covered.</p><p> </p><p>“If I had known things would get so interesting, I might have decided to go, too, instead of sleeping in.”</p><p> </p><p>“Interesting how?” Maya asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you left with Lucas, and Zay, and Nadine. Then a while after that Zay and Nadine came back, and a while after <em>that</em> you and Lucas came back with Mr. Hunter.” She said it all so matter-of-factly that Maya wasn’t sure how to respond. “I know I might not understand certain things the rest of you all do, but even I could see what was going on there.” She turned to pick up her second bag without missing a beat. Maya, meanwhile, felt her throat was a little dry.</p><p> </p><p>“And what was ‘going on there,’ according to you,” she finally managed to ask, telling herself this could still be one of those scenarios where the other had things completely wrong.</p><p> </p><p>“You guys kissed,” Smackle declared, and Maya felt like she wanted to crack a window… maybe crawl through it or something. What was she supposed to do, deny it? What if she said something to the others? If they found out, then it could speed some things along she much preferred at the pace they were going now. But if she confirmed it, then wouldn’t that make it worse? Her hesitation was dragging on, and sooner or later, Smackle had to notice it; she did. “It was all over your faces,” she said, finally turning to look at her. “Not physically, but… well, yes, physically.”</p><p> </p><p>“Did you tell anyone about this?” Maya made herself ask.</p><p> </p><p>“No, why would I? I know that gossip is a thing, but I don’t see the point of it. I figured if you wanted people to know you would have told them.” Maya was amazed… Grateful, too. “So, you <em>don’t</em> want people knowing then.” Maya shook her head. “Alright,” Smackle nodded, then after a moment, “What was it like?”</p><p> </p><p>“I…” Maya stammered, surprised now at the question. Oh, she hadn’t forgotten any of it, not at all, but how could she even explain? “It was… memorable.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you haven’t again since? How come?”</p><p> </p><p>“We… You should really finish unpacking, we need to get to Riley’s house soon,” Maya got up from her bed to go and help her. Smackle stopped her by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, then gave her what Maya felt was meant as a sealed vow in a hug.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad we talked… roomie,” she announced, and Maya silently nodded, knowing no words could fit.</p><p> </p><p>Once Smackle was all set and unpacked, they rejoined Maya’s mother so they could all head out to the party. As they drove off, Maya pondered her next step to herself. Should she tell Lucas that Smackle knew? It would not have felt right to keep him in the dark, it would have made it <em>her</em> secret when it was meant to be theirs. Honestly, she wanted it to be no one’s someday.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0229"><h2>229. Their Party For Celebration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Friar car pulled up to the curb, and Lucas spotted Katy Hart’s car as they got out and made for the Matthews’ house. Still, he hadn’t seen Maya, and when he did, she was standing right around the corner of the house and staring at him, intently so once she’d seen him looking back. She motioned for him to follow before disappearing out of sight. With little other option, he excused himself from his parents and Farkle and said he’d follow them inside in a minute.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he called in a whisper as he rounded the corner of the house. There she stood waiting, like they were two spies meeting in a dark alley. “What’s going on?”</p><p> </p><p>“She knows.” He didn’t understand. “Smackle, she knows.” He still wasn’t grasping, and he could see Maya was growing aggravated. “About New York, she knows we… she knows about the kiss,” she lowered her voice even more. His eyes widened. “I didn’t tell her,” she added, reading his mind. “She just knew. I couldn’t lie. She won’t tell anyone, but I thought you should know that she knows.”</p><p> </p><p>“This… kind of explains things, actually,” he reflected, thinking of some calls to Farkle where she’d been there with him. “So… what does that mean for… our…” How was he supposed to define it?</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing new, I guess,” she admitted, looking apologetic for it, and almost in the same breath she added, “I really wish it did though… mean something new, you know?” Would it have been inappropriate to smile? His face must have read as ‘you do?’ because she’d quickly gotten a slight trace of a smile. “Of course, I do,” she assured him, and he felt lifted high by those words. Now here they stood, both of them smiling and neither of them able to look at the other as they did so.</p><p> </p><p>“We… we should go back in before they come looking for us,” he finally spoke, nodding. “What are we going to say…”</p><p> </p><p>“Visiting New Yorkers Hosting Conference,” she simply tapped him on the shoulder before heading back around the corner. He paused, nodded to himself, and followed.</p><p> </p><p>Walking into the Matthews house, thankfully, there was plenty of activity, plenty of people, and so their delayed entrance made no impact, allowing them to meld with the rest of the guests. There were all of them, Riley, Zay, Nadine, Asher, Dylan, Joey, Rebecca, all of their parents and siblings, along with Farkle and Smackle, and his parents, and Maya’s mother. The Graduation/Welcome Party was in full swing and they joined in at once.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas’ new roommate was quickly taken along, away from his mother, who for all her good intentions of making the boy feel special on this day only seemed to make him feel very, very awkward. With him came Smackle, who appeared to have regained his side as soon as they’d arrived, which made some sense, too. They were new to this, and though they had many friends around them, they also had a great number of strangers around them. They were each other’s more familiar point of security.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas tried not to look directly at Smackle too much now that he knew that she knew, which he realized might have telegraphed plenty on its own, but it felt the safer option. <em>Of course, I do…</em> Maya’s words still reverberated through him.</p><p> </p><p>“Nadine’s mother said I could hold the baby when she wakes up,” Smackle declared as the three of them rejoined with Maya and Riley. “I haven’t held many babies before.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll do fine,” Maya assured her, and Lucas nodded. Little Olivia Zhu was possibly the most well-behaved baby he’d ever seen. She didn’t cry when people picked her up, no, only smiled… sometimes she even laughed. Nadine had been over the moon for her newest sister from the day she’d been born. As much as she might have liked a brother for a change, it changed nothing about how she felt when she saw the baby for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, the others are out back, come on,” Zay appeared, and so the six of them headed out to join the other five in the yard. Eleven of them now, it was coming to be something of a crowd, but it didn’t feel that way. Every one of them was his friend, some for longer, some not, but all of them important in his or her own way.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think?” Riley asked the two visitors, sweeping her arm about to highlight the decorations. Lucas knew the banner reading ‘Congratulations Graduates of New York &amp; Texas!’ and then beneath in equal sized letters ‘Welcome Farkle &amp; Isadora!’ had been hers and Maya’s handiwork, as were the balloons and other such embellishments.</p><p> </p><p>“This is where the real party happens,” Maya declared with pride. In the next moment, there was music around them to make it even more official. They had attempted to get Auggie, and Nadine’s older younger sisters to join in, but they were off playing in Auggie’s room, so they’d let them be.</p><p> </p><p>It was actually now starting to really feel like it was real, didn’t it? Middle school was over, and summer was here. Up to then, it had still not felt exactly real, even though they’d been done for a couple days, they’d emptied their lockers, had a good nostalgic stroll about the building, and a good long sit on the front steps, knowing it wouldn’t be their place anymore. Soon, they would have to find a new place, start over again. Now they were really getting to realize it, and it was just as well that they had their friends around as they did.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0230"><h2>230. Their Party For Transition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Somewhere along the way, the conversation had come up to the fact that they were all about to start high school. They had already discussed their moving out of middle school, which didn’t seem like so much of a big deal to some, while it did for others, as much as they didn’t want it to. For Maya it had meant leaving the place where she had found herself after coming here. Of course, she would still have all of her friends with her as they moved on. Still, she had come to almost rely on that one place, where she had come to be a good student on top of everything. What if she faltered?</p><p> </p><p>And Riley felt bad that her father would remain there while the rest of them moved on, which, as she’d told Maya, was a surprise to her, as she’d often felt ill at ease having her father as her teacher. Maya had reassured her, suggesting they could get another miracle, and he might show up where they least expected him. Riley both liked and feared the sound of that, which had the rest of them chuckling.</p><p> </p><p>“What about you two?” Asher asked Farkle and Smackle. “What’s Einstein Academy going to be like in high school?”</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t know. We’re not going to be there next year, we’re off to Abigail Adams,” Farkle informed him and the others. Both Maya and Riley had reacted, knowing this was the school where they would have gone if they had still been in New York. “And we don’t know what it’ll be like either, but we’ll find out together,” he declared, turning to Smackle, and Maya felt amazed to see the pair of them as they smiled to one another. When had this happened? She looked to Riley, and now they were the ones sharing a smile; they were only glad it <em>had</em> happened.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s your school going to be like?” Smackle asked the rest of them.</p><p> </p><p>Maya thought back to a few weeks before. Their class had been brought over to the high school, been given a tour. She’d seen the building from the outside plenty of times in the past almost two years. For sure it was bigger than their middle school, which had come to feel so familiar to her, whereas this place felt alien, cold. She could put on airs, like it didn’t matter, as much as she wanted, but those closest to her would know the truth of it.</p><p> </p><p>There were steps, sure, but they weren’t the same wide ones. If they all sat in these, they’d be blocking the way for everyone. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it felt like one to her. How many memories had she kept on cherishing since she’d come here, and how many had taken place on those steps? Where would they go now?</p><p> </p><p>The inside wasn’t that much more reassuring. But then hadn’t she gone through all this not two years ago? Twice? She had come into that school she now lamented seeing it just as she saw this one, as just some school she felt no attachment to. But even before that, hadn’t she just started in middle school in New York, a new school again, even only for a couple weeks? It hadn’t been that big a deal then, not like the middle school here, the one that had really felt like the world was starting over. <em>It</em> had felt alien and cold, too.</p><p> </p><p>And then it hadn’t. Then it had become warm and sort of home-like. It had been unexpected, but it had nonetheless happened. So maybe the same would happen here, in high school. And she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have all these great friends there with her, and she’d have Riley once more, and she’d have Lucas…</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know yet,” she’d finally answered Smackle. “But I’m going to find out.” The others smiled in agreement.</p><p> </p><p>The subject had then turned to basketball, as it was bound to, with all of them there. Both Maya and Nadine would be trying out for the girls’ team again. Riley claimed she would be reasonable and stay away from this again, though if she had any designs on cheerleading in any official capacity, she didn’t speak a word of them. Rebecca for her part was more of a soccer player than basketball, and Joey was in no way interested in playing sports. His twin though, along with Lucas, Zay, and Dylan, would also go in for the boys’ team. Dylan was confident he was up to it now, and he’d gotten the all-clear from his doctor, too. His parents had left it up to him, though he told his friends how he knew they still worried. The four of them boys had long had it in mind to be teammates through to the end of high school though, and they all still wanted it.</p><p> </p><p>One way or the other, those in New York and those in Texas, all of them seemed to want one thing. They wanted to get to the other side of those four years still feeling that some of the people they would be as they started continued to exist. They would grow. They would change, they knew this. But they had a good thing, didn’t they? Was it so bad that they wanted to hold on to it?</p><p> </p><p>“Couldn’t you two just move here?” Maya joked, looking to Farkle and Smackle. “You could keep staying with us,” she pointed to herself and Lucas. He looked as though he was about to say something like ‘our parents might mind, don’t you think,’ and she just gave him a look in return that needed no translation.</p><p> </p><p>“Our families are still in New York,” Farkle pointed out, though he knew she was only teasing. “The other ones,” Farkle added, and it made them smile, none more than his two relocated friends, and the one who would be his roommate for the summer.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0231"><h2>231. Their Party For Summer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Much as they enjoyed this thing with just their group in the yard, they knew that sooner or later their parents would want to see them. So, they headed back inside for a while, becoming absorbed in the gathered mass of adults sat and stood around the Matthews’ living room. This turned into their parents expressing their pride in their respective children’s accomplishments, though in some cases it was clear that some of those kids were kept in more than their own parents’ praise. Maya was humbled to be praised by her own mother, by Riley’s parents, of course… but Mr. Friar’s words had caught her completely by surprise. He told her how he still hadn’t gotten over that art show they’d done months before. There had been mention of it in the paper at the time, and the clipping was still on display on their refrigerator door, so she could believe it. She had thanked him, as she had done the others, all the while noting the equal surprise on Lucas’ face, and the smile that followed. He was happy for her.</p><p> </p><p>The whole of their eleven had bit by bit evaded the living room, taking refuge this time in Riley’s room, when the party turned to dancing among the parents. With the last of them retrieved, the door had been shut, though they could still hear music and merriment from below that could make any kid their age violently blush in embarrassment, but being among friends they quickly pushed the subject away and turned to one much more intriguing: summer. They had weeks to do – for the most part – all that they wanted. Like the summer before, Asher and Joey’s uncle had taken those of them who’d wanted it on as employees at his diner, so several of them would have to share their time there. They would also be carrying on with basketball, to keep ready for fall’s tryouts.</p><p> </p><p>But then there was the rest of the time. Movie nights they had already discussed, and the Babineaux party, which would be something like a farewell party to their guests, so this they tried not to think about too much just yet.</p><p> </p><p>And they had more to look forward to before then. Their second annual camping trip was a month away. Maya could see the enthusiasm within their trio of first timers was a bit on a tipping scale. But with how much the rest of them talked about it, like it was some of the best times they’d ever had, the others soon seemed cautiously optimistic. This might have been the best they could hope for. Once they were out there, they felt certain, their friends would have no more doubt left in them.</p><p> </p><p>Smackle had done her homework on the city, Maya had already discovered, but this became all the more evident when she presented them with a list. These were the things she wanted to do and the places she wanted to see while she was in Austin. The rest of them scooted in to look at what was on there, some twenty-odd things written in her neat hand. It would soon be termed the Great Texas Bucket, and would become their mission for the summer. As it turned out, a few of those had been included primarily for Farkle’s benefit, so both of them would be served in the process.</p><p> </p><p>Maya couldn’t speak for the rest of them, but all this talk of what they would do and wanted to do over the summer made her want to just get started, to not just sit here at this party of theirs, to go and get one thing crossed off that list instead. Something big and wonderful to really kick things off.</p><p> </p><p>She had skated past cautious optimism a long time ago. It still felt new to her and borderline dangerous, not to expect the drop to come hand in hand with happiness. Her first school year had been the best one she’d had in her life, but then the second one had been even better. Not only had she maintained her improved schoolwork and grades, but she’d even improved just a bit more. And then add to it her introduction into the basketball team, this great unexpected joy, and then Riley’s coming along being even greater and more unexpected…</p><p> </p><p>This year she’d finally seen New York again. And then there… She stole a glance to Lucas, talking to Farkle. Much still needed to happen there, but other things already <em>had</em> happened there, and they had contributed to the year’s greatness. And then her mother and her… and her mother and Shawn…</p><p> </p><p>He was coming down, in just under two weeks, would stay for two or more, he never seemed sure, which she had no trouble with; maybe she’d convince him to stay longer, and longer… all summer and more… He would be staying here, at Riley’s, and as her best friend had reported, Mr. Matthews had gotten him all settled in already and was barely containing his anticipation, much to his wife’s exasperation. The girls shared a laugh, being familiar with the exuberance of Cory and Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>Things were still going on so well with her mother and him and knowing that he made her mother happy might have been not so far off from the happiness to know that her mother made <em>him</em> happy, too. She wanted the both of them to have all the joy they could have, because they deserved it. And without a selfish agenda to it, their happiness made her happy in return.</p><p> </p><p>As the party had started to reach its end, some of them had started to leave. Soon it was down to only six of them. Riley and her, and Lucas and Zay, and Farkle and Smackle, sat around the Matthews’ living room, while her mother and the Matthews, Friar, and Babineaux parents kept on chatting in the kitchen. And as much as Maya loved having the whole group of them gathered together, she was also reminded of how at ease she was with it being smaller, too, although she didn’t know that she’d ever foreseen this particular grouping together. But there was something about having them all here, her two very best friends here in Texas, her two longest time friends, and the one who had become her friend at a distance only to now become her summer roommate…</p><p> </p><p>Zay had been next to go, and then the Friars had announced it was time to head home, too; Mrs. Friar wanted to have their first dinner with their guest. So, Lucas and Farkle departed as well, leaving Maya and Riley and Smackle to themselves. Maya decided then and there that sometime over the summer they needed to have a sleepover, just them girls. Nadine would have to be there, of course, and they could even have Rebecca, too. It simply seemed to her that Smackle might benefit from the experience.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Maya and her mother and their guest left the Matthews house and returned to their own. Their dinner was to be a pizza picked up on the way, and really nothing could have made the night better. As they waited for their order at the restaurant, Maya and Smackle sat there, looking over the Great Texas Bucket again, trying to decide what they would do first. Before they ever left the restaurant with their pizza, they nearly had the summer planned, each item on the list given a number from one to six to mark which week they planned to do them in. Some of these things Maya had knowingly tried to set within the time where Shawn would be with them.</p><p> </p><p>They returned home, where the three of them sat at the table and ate their pizza, the girls all the while discussing their plans for the summer with Maya’s mother. Katy Hart might have been just exactly the person they needed to turn to with this sort of thing, as Maya came to realize. She wanted so much for them to make the most of this summer, and if she could help make it happen, she would.</p><p> </p><p>Later, when it came time for bed, Maya and Smackle settled into their neighboring beds, and Maya felt once again that this would be the start of something great. Whatever stress came with the uncertainty of high school in the fall would not weigh on her now. With the morning would come summer, and with summer would come just… everything.</p><p> </p><p>Almost to keep her from flying too far, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she remembered other things… like Lucas, and their big question mark of a situation, and the girl in the next bed holding in her vast mind the truth they had kept secret all this time.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0232"><h2>232. Her Encounter With the Past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time seemed to have no care for how it went by. Already two weeks had gone by, a third of this precious time, and Maya didn’t understand how that could have happened. Two weeks with Farkle and Smackle with them, two weeks of sharing her room and her house, her life essentially, with Isadora Smackle. Oh, they had been two wonderful weeks, for sure, or else she might have been glad to see those days fly by, but she really wasn’t. She wanted these days to go on forever.</p><p> </p><p>And to make it all better, Shawn had arrived in Austin the night before. They’d gone out to dinner the four of them to celebrate, and Maya still smiled thinking of how baffled Shawn was by her roommate. Smackle could definitely be a bit startling to the untrained mind, while by now Maya was more than familiar with how she could be.</p><p> </p><p>But then actually living with the girl had a way of putting everything in a new light, and she felt rather attached to her, now more than she’d ever done before, and it made her even happier to have her around.</p><p> </p><p>That morning, while her mother was out with Shawn, Maya had taken it upon herself to share something with Smackle that she’d been meaning to for two weeks now. She’d gotten her out back into the yard to show her a few things about basketball. She hadn’t said it to her outright, but she didn’t have to, because she had it on good authority the girl’s curiosity had been piqued.</p><p> </p><p>Maya and the other five vying to make the high school teams had been practicing pretty much every other day, doing much of what they’d always done. And even on their own they had done the same, or at least she had, here at home, and while Smackle had mostly sat quietly reading at first, more and more as time progressed Maya could see the girl’s eyes follow the ball more than the words. Now this gave her an idea.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been tossing the ball, running around for a while, seeing Smackle look up every so often as though she thought she was fooling anyone. One of the biggest things that Maya had picked up on as time went on in knowing Isadora Smackle was that she wanted to try things, not try… experience… So many things she hadn’t done before, for reasons Maya understood and respected, but now if something caught her eye…</p><p> </p><p>Getting the ball to fall and roll just at Smackle’s feet hadn’t been as easy as she would have thought, with the grass and all, but finally it had gone, and the plan was in motion. She watched as Smackle looked at the ball sitting next to her, and she waited, like the girl was some small forest animal not to be spooked away. When she picked it up, Maya went on waiting until she stood up with it and took a few steps forward.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I give it a shot?” she asked, and Maya beamed.</p><p> </p><p>“Go for it,” she stepped aside. “Do you want me to show you…”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a ball and a hoop, I can do it,” Smackle shrugged, and Maya kept herself from saying anything. Just stood back and watched as Smackle faced the hoop, stared at it… kept on staring… and on… She might have had a future as a living statue, and then… She finally moved and took her shot. “See? Easy.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya was unable to look anything but completely gobsmacked. That could have been a fluke, yeah? She brought the ball back and made her go again… and again… and again… Even when she tried it from as far back as the yard would allow, she didn’t miss once.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, so you can do <em>that</em>,” Maya blinked to herself. “But what about the rest? Can you still do it if I stand in your way?”</p><p> </p><p>The answer was soon revealed as ‘no.’ The moment Maya came to defend that hoop, Smackle became a whole other kind of statue, more paralysed than focused. She could see no matter what she tried she would be stopped, and it could only frustrate her to be held to this problem she couldn’t solve. But she wouldn’t give up, that wasn’t her.</p><p> </p><p>“What do I do? How do I go?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>Maya didn’t know if Smackle would have done so well if surrounded by two whole teams in doing this, but one on one with her, she could be at ease enough. Maya did her best to show the girl the tricks she had come to know like second nature. She was left to see again how big of a part the sport had come to play in her life here in Texas.</p><p> </p><p>After a little while, they had made some progress. Smackle didn’t exactly make any shots yet, but at least she moved, and she tried to find an opening, even though Maya didn’t go easy on her; she wouldn’t have wanted her to. When she came to a stop though, Maya stopped, too.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why’d you stop, you can…”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t want to hit that man,” Smackle pointed past her. Maya turned to see there was in fact a man standing there, not far from where the hoop stood on the back of the house.</p><p> </p><p>No, not a man… well not any man. The moment Maya saw him, she felt cold, like stone… like a statue. Of all the faces that could have come calling from out of her memories, his was the last she would have expected to find, in Austin, of all places, and at her home.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi…” she breathed, addressing her father.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0233"><h2>233. Her Encounter With Reasons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He looked the same. Or maybe he didn’t, but then her memories were just so distant that this was the face she saw now, and knowing it was him, recognizing him… it was all she could see. But he was here, and <em>that</em> was the part that left her transfixed. All those years and suddenly he just appeared like this? No way her mother knew, which meant he’d just shown up for her. Why didn’t she feel anything then?</p><p> </p><p>“Hello, Maya,” her father smiled, and here again she was transported to the past of blurred memories. If he expected her to say anything now, he was out of luck, as she felt she’d forgotten how to speak. The girl at her side, maybe ill at ease with extended silences, stepped forward with a nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Isadora,” she introduced herself. The tall blond man turned his smile on to her with a nod of his own.</p><p> </p><p>“Kermit,” he replied, and Smackle looked back at Maya, diverting her confused look away from the man with the unfortunate name. “I’ve been meaning to come down to see you for a while,” the man turned back to his daughter, and at once Maya wondered if this meant he had known all along that they’d moved here. She had wondered at first, though she’d never asked, if her mother had told him, if maybe she had to, even if he had left them the way he’d done.</p><p> </p><p>“You did?” was all she managed to ask.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, ever since I saw that article, about that art show you did, the living art?” How he managed to give her more questions as he answered them, she couldn’t say. How had he managed to see that all the way back in New York? “I didn’t even realize you and your mother were living down here now until I saw it.”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how to feel again, to find out he really hadn’t known where she’d been these past two years. Shouldn’t it have been important to him? He’d just told her he hadn’t known where his daughter had been living for two years as casually as though he’d commented on the weather.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you saw the article and you just… decided to come here?” Maya shrugged, her face closed-off.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I was passing through Austin, so I figured now would be good,” he revealed. If her expression changed in any way, it wasn’t entirely for his benefit. But then his explanation made her think of Shawn, and his first couple visits, his reasoning of passing by the city while on some work assignment. In his case, she knew it was pretend, when in reality he’d only come for her and her mother. But then this man, her father… he said he was passing through and she believed it. She was a visit of convenience and little else.</p><p> </p><p>She fell silent again, and if her father was made to feel awkward for it, she didn’t feel any remorse. Right now, the only one she felt sorry for was Smackle, who had to stand by and witness this.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you play basketball?” he asked, and it took her a moment to remember she had worn her old jersey that day. All the small talk showing how little her father knew of her life only made her feel worse and worse, and in that moment, she knew she couldn’t take more of it.</p><p> </p><p>“You need to go,” she told her father. “I can’t… You have to leave.” She wasn’t going to look away. She wouldn’t cry. She would keep it together until he was gone, so long as it happened soon… very soon. “Please go,” she added. He stared at her for a moment, but then he nodded before reaching in his pocket and pulling out what she eventually saw was a business card and a pen. He scribbled something.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be in town until tomorrow night. This is where I’m staying.” He tried to hand her the card, but she couldn’t make herself reach out for it. He finally turned and handed it to Smackle before turning back to her. “I’d really like if we could talk, you and me.”</p><p> </p><p>And with that, he was gone. He walked back around the side of the house, and Maya listened, until she heard a car door, a car driving away… When she couldn’t hear it anymore, the block gave way, and she felt tears roll down her cheeks, still almost too stunned to do more than that. She’d been blindsided by his arrival, by his whole presence… She could barely remember what she’d been doing, and when Smackle touched her arm, she startled.</p><p> </p><p>“That was your father?” Smackle asked, and Maya just managed to nod. Whatever discomforts the girl may have had with contact, she knew enough to step forward and put her arms around the distraught Maya, who put her head down on the offered shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how long they stood there, or when they’d gone back inside the house, but suddenly here she was, sitting on the couch, with the business card on the coffee table in front of her. She couldn’t stop staring at that confidently looped handwriting. She knew the hotel, knew where it was, and she had to accept that for the next two days this would be where her father was.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted to rip that card in half, but still her hands wouldn’t cooperate. She just sat there, numb to what had just happened and trying to know how she was meant to feel going forward. And the question remained as to whether she would let these two days go by and let her father slip back out of her life.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0234"><h2>234. Her Encounter With Truth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Katy and Shawn returned, still laughing over whatever they had been discussing on their way in, they stepped into a mood that seemed to immediately suck out any merriment from them. Smackle sat quietly, looking unsure what to do with herself, across from the couch where Maya was laid out, face turned into the cushions.</p><p> </p><p>"Maya?" Katy asked, moving to her daughter's side at once, Shawn right behind her. "Hey, what's wrong?" When she didn't reply, both of them turned to Smackle for some explanation.</p><p> </p><p>"I tried to make her feel better... It didn't work," the girl told them. "I didn't know what else to do, so here we are." When they kept staring at her, she pointed to the card still sitting on the coffee table. All they had to do was see the name printed on it and then the story filled itself out.</p><p> </p><p>"Ke... He's here? He was... How?" Katy stumbled over her words.</p><p> </p><p>"The article, about the art show," Maya's voice resonated through the couch cushions. She turned on to her back, turning her head to find the two of them there before sitting up. Her mother put her arms around her without a word. "He's in town for a couple days, so he decided to come and see me."</p><p> </p><p>"Well isn't that nice of him," Katy replied, her tone showing just what she thought of that. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, I should have been, but I guess it was too much to ask for a heads-up, yeah?"</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been lying there a while before the two of them returned. She had tried to think about all of it, but she was getting nowhere. Now her mother was here, and she could just feel the anger boiling in her, for as much as she tried to keep it contained in front of her, and Maya could feel it. In a way, it helped to break her out of whatever spell of stupor she'd been stuck under since her father's visit. For all the anger she saw, there was also just so much love underneath it, love and protection for her. Her mother and her had never been as close as they now were, but this only made them closer.</p><p> </p><p>"I... I made him leave," she confessed. "I had no idea he was coming, I didn't know what to do. I told him to go away."</p><p> </p><p>"It's alright, Maya, you did good," her mother promised, brushing at her hair, holding her face in her hands. "You don't have to see him if you don't want to, you don't have to do <em>anything</em> if you don't want to. Do you hear me?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," Maya nodded. "But... he's here, until tomorrow night. He's staying... there," she pointed to the card. Her mother picked it up and flipped it over.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh, how nice for him," she scoffed, then turning back to her daughter, "Sorry. So... you want to go see him, is that it?" Maya lost her voice again.</p><p> </p><p>Hadn't she been asking herself that same question in her head all this time? Between that question and its still undiscovered answer, it felt there were obstacles, all of them accumulated to stand in her way. One of them was herself, but another was her mother, and she couldn't say which one tripped her up the most. Would it make her feel bad if she chose to see him? All these years, she'd been seeing the situation between them all wrong. Now she saw it clearly, clearer than ever, and she didn't know what it would be like... Really, she didn't want to hurt her mother, but also there was still the other side, the one that wondered just... what if she never got another shot?</p><p> </p><p>"I-I don't know," she admitted, standing up from the couch. All this did was leave her with the inability to stand still or know what to do with herself. "He's here, and I tell myself 'well at least he came,' but he's had that article for a while, yeah? So, what I should really ask myself is 'Would he ever have come if he didn't have to be in Austin?'"</p><p> </p><p>The tears, the ones she'd fought down all this time, they were climbing, higher by the second. There were too many emotions firing at once and she didn't know what to do with herself. She looked at Smackle, who was helpless to the situation. She looked to her mother, to Shawn. Whatever they were thinking about her question, they didn't know what to say about it, neither of them, which left her to think it would either make her more confused or hurt, make her lose hold of those tears.</p><p> </p><p>"What do I do?" she sounded as though she was begging. And maybe she was. She didn't know how to move forward.</p><p> </p><p>When neither of them gave her more than mouths moving on unspoken lost words, Maya turned and strode for her room, shutting the door before dropping on to her bed. It wasn't a solution, she knew, but at least here she didn't feel the restlessness in her limbs.</p><p> </p><p>Hadn't her summer been going so well? Was this life pulling her back from the pit of hope again? No. No, that was just him. Her father wasn't responsible for the universe, no one was. <em>He</em> was responsible for this feeling. <em>He</em> was responsible for her tears, because yes, now she was crying. HE was responsible for disrupting her life and her mother's, too. Him, him, all him.</p><p> </p><p>The knock at her door a few minutes later might as well have been a voice; she knew who it was. She tried to wipe at her face, as though it wouldn't show she'd been crying. Another knock.</p><p> </p><p>"Come in, Shawn." He stepped into her room, as cautious as she would have expected him to. He closed the door again. This was just him and her talking, this said. She sat up on her bed, while he came and sat on the edge of the other, facing her. She breathed out. "What do I do?"</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0235"><h2>235. Her Encounter With Protection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From the very beginning, she had felt she could talk to Shawn Hunter in such a way that it felt as though they were already five paces into any and all conversation. Some things just didn't need saying; he already knew. Even so, knowing would only take them so far, as she could see now. Shawn sat across from her, and he looked as though he was trying to figure out what to say to her. She had asked him what she should do, whether she should see her father or not.</p><p> </p><p>"What do you want to do?" he asked her after a bit. She looked back at him, holding his gaze as he held hers. She shook her head, the tears returning.</p><p> </p><p>"I don't know... I don't know, I don't know, I don't..." she cried, and by the end of it, Shawn had crossed over to come and crouch in front of her, hugging her. She held on to him, this wonderful man who'd come into her life and her mother's and been so much more than the man who'd come to visit her that day in the last two years than the other has been in all the years of her life.</p><p> </p><p>"I can't decide for you, Maya," he spoke as he pulled back to look at her. "I wish I could, I do, I..." He stopped short, biting back his words and turning his head to the side in such a way that told her he had some choice words about her father but wouldn't speak them in front of her. "You need to be the one to choose, otherwise you won't be doing it for the right reasons, you know?" She did, and she nodded. "I can't decide, but I will listen, okay? Anything you want to talk about, or ask... I'm right here." She nodded again. She knew he would be there for her; she had always been able to count on that. He stood now and sat next to her. She turned to face him, and he turned to face her. She was still sniffling, and he stretched out his arm to grasp a box of tissues to offer her. It yanked a small laugh from her as she grabbed one and dried her face and blew her nose.</p><p> </p><p>"Mom's probably going to be mad about him being here, you should keep an eye on her," Maya told Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh, way ahead of you, kid." She smiled; she always liked when he called her that. "Right now, this is about you though." She stayed quiet a while, thinking, though after a while she started to speak those thoughts aloud.</p><p> </p><p>"I thought about writing to him, sometimes, but I never did. I kind of thought he wouldn't want to read even if I did, for some reason. I knew about his other family, and that felt like I wasn't a part of it. I mean, I have... siblings and I don't even know them, you know?"</p><p> </p><p>"I really, really do," he promised, and she realized of course he did. He'd told her about his brother.</p><p> </p><p>"I thought for so long that my mom had pushed him away, but it wasn't true. I know why my mom kept it secret, I do, but because of it there was a part of me that resented her, for years, when I should have been feeling those things about him. If I hadn't found out the truth, I might have seen him there today and just run into his arms because he had finally come back for me despite everything else. But that wasn't what it was, none of it. He just left us, abandoned us, and my mother, she raised me with all she had, and she protected me, like they were both supposed to do."</p><p> </p><p>"Your mother is a wonderful woman," I can't argue with that," Shawn spoke, with that sort of faraway look in his eyes she would catch as Katy Hart would come up in conversation.</p><p> </p><p>"And he is not a wonderful man. Not to us. I don't know what his other family thinks of him, and that's up to them, but to us, to me..." She became quiet again. She didn't know what else to say. "Didn't even consider what it might mean that he would be here all of a sudden, he just came, like we'd seen each other just the other day."</p><p> </p><p>"Okay, listen," Shawn tapped her arm. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, you already know that. But if I can give you one piece of advice? Don't decide now. Take the day, sleep on it. Then tomorrow morning I think you will have your answer. If you decide to go, I can drive you, we will, me and your mom. And if you decide <em>not</em> to go, there's a photography exhibit, I've been meaning to take you, we can go, the four of us, you and me and your mother and Smackle, and you don't have to think about him."</p><p> </p><p>"If... If I do go, can we do the exhibit after anyway?"</p><p> </p><p>"Absolutely," Shawn nodded, and she hugged him again. He held her, and she didn't know fear. She only felt warm, and loved, and safe, and that made her want to cry again, though for a whole other reason.</p><p> </p><p>When they walked back out of the room, and she saw her mother with that concerned look in her eyes, Maya went and hugged her, too. Her mother, so different from the image she'd held of her for so long... when she loved her more than any other human being ever had. The feeling was entirely mutual.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the day had been spent quietly amongst the four of them. Her mother and Shawn being attentive to her was as much of a given as was to be expected, but then Smackle was there for her, too, in what ways she knew how to. The night ended with the four of them squeezed together on a couch, watching a movie. When they had all gone to bed though, she couldn't sleep. She was supposed to know by morning, but what if she didn't? What if she never decided?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0236"><h2>236. Her Encounter With Options</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Smackle was fast asleep in the other bed, but Maya had been wide awake, staring at the wall. There was the article, the one who’d brought her father into her life again. She had put it right there when it had come out, so proud as she was for their accomplishment. Was it a sign? Something to tell her to just do it, to go and see him? Every time she thought about it though, she would get a sudden surge of fear, uncertainty… she didn’t think she could do it.</p><p> </p><p>When her phone’s screen lit up just out of the corner of her eye, she startled. Reaching for it, she saw a text had come in – Lucas. She frowned, sitting up, wondering what would make him text at this hour. <em>Are you okay?</em> it said, and for a moment she couldn’t understand how he’d know she might not be.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Why do you ask?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Farkle told me before he went to bed. Smackle texted him to say I should text you about something, ASAP.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Maya looked to the girl asleep in the next bed. Of course, she had thought to do this. Had she told Farkle about what happened, to get him to do this? She stared at her screen for a while, debating on what to do next. Then, eventually, she started to type.</p><p> </p><p><em>My father showed up today. I told him to go away. He’s in Austin until tomorrow night and he wants to talk. I don’t know what to do.</em> She sent the message, with only the smallest hesitation.</p><p> </p><p>A few seconds went by, and then the reply sent her out of bed and quietly out of her room and down the stairs. All it had said was ‘basement,’ but she knew what it meant. Before long, her silenced phone lit up with an incoming call – Lucas. “Hey…” he said.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d make a wisecrack right about now, but… kind of glad to hear your voice,” she admitted, sitting down.</p><p> </p><p>“Any time,” he promised. “Are you okay?” his initial question was asked again; she was no closer to an answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn says it has to be my choice, if I see him or not, and I know he’s right, but I can’t decide, so right now I wouldn’t mind if someone decided for me. Will you do that for me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t go,” he said, very plainly, and to her surprise, the reaction in her head was very sort of sudden. He said don’t go, and her head said go.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t a matter of her thinking they could be a family again, that all would be forgiven now, it was just a matter of… saying things that needed saying, things she deserved to be able to say that she’d never gotten the chance to say before. She had to go, and she was going to.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you do that?” Maya asked. “You did say not to go so I’d figure it out, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Pappy Joe used to do this to me all the time when I was a kid, wasn’t sure if it would work or if you’d just get mad at me, but… I figured it was worth a shot.” She breathed out. This was a relief, but it also wasn’t. Now she knew, but also now it meant she’d be having that talk with her father the next morning.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you do something else for me?” she asked after a beat.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything,” he promised.</p><p> </p><p>When she went back upstairs, she went back into her room, then crouched to wake up Smackle. The girl was surprisingly quiet; Maya had feared on the last second that she would shout at being surprised like this. Instead, she just opened her eyes and looked at her.</p><p> </p><p>“You told Farkle?” Maya asked. She nodded. “Thank you. I’m going to do it, tomorrow. I’m going to see my father.”</p><p> </p><p>“You talked to Lucas, right?” Smackle yawned, looking like she would fall asleep again at a moment’s notice.</p><p> </p><p>“I did. He helped me figure it out. I decided on my own.” Smackle nodded, or maybe just resettled her head on her pillow. “Tomorrow morning,” Maya told her, getting up to return to her bed and let the other girl sleep.</p><p> </p><p>She stared at that news clipping again. She tried to picture him, her father, coming across it for the first time, seeing her name, her painted face… She wondered what he had felt.</p><p> </p><p>She tried to think about what she might say to him, when she’d be out there, standing in front of him. She wouldn’t be blindsided this time, she could prepare herself… but who was she kidding really? She knew, as much as she’d try and prepare, it would still be a shock to see him, and whatever she might try and prepare would fail her in the moment. She would just have to know, in that moment. She would look at his face and she would know what had to be said.</p><p> </p><p>She closed her eyes. Bit by bit, sleep came upon her, and then dreams. Here were only good things, the great wonderful things that were in her life while he wasn’t. They were her shield, and with them, she knew she would get through tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0237"><h2>237. Her Encounter With Him</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d woken up that morning feeling almost like a zombie, or a robot. She had prepared herself physically, but her mind had taken little to no part in it; she might have been afraid to know what was going through it as she went about going to meet with her father.</p><p> </p><p>It was still early, but that didn’t matter. She needed to do this, and she couldn’t just sit around until it was later. She would have lost it. Finally, they had driven out to the hotel, and Maya had gone up to the door of the room marked on the card. Her hand, her little zombie robot hand, gave a knock. When the door opened and she saw him, she was a real girl again, an incredibly nervous one. He looked happy to see she’d come, and she didn’t know what to do with it or where to begin.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so glad you decided to come, Maya,” he indicated a table and chairs. She hesitated, but she sat.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t do it for you,” she stated plainly. She had decided already that she wouldn’t lie… and she wouldn’t spare him. “I needed to do this for myself.” He sat, too, and whether he was or wasn’t ready for what she had to say, she was going to say it. “Would you ever have come? If you didn’t have to be in Austin, would you have come? The article’s been out for months, did you find it now?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I… I saw it, more or less when it came out, I have a friend, Wilson, do you remember Wilson? He used to come around when you were little. You used to call him Willy. He lives out here now, he saw it and sent it to me. He’s getting married today, actually. Good thing you came early. You might actually get to see him, he…”</p><p> </p><p>The look on her face must have finally told him to stop. Yes, to even her own amazement, she remembered this Willy. It was vague, but he’d said the name and a face had come into her head. So, this man had seen the article, recognized her, sent it to her father and now… now…</p><p> </p><p>“So ‘Willy’ gave you this months ago, and if he wasn’t getting married here today, how long would it have been before you came to see me? Would you have come?”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya…” he started to speak, but she felt she was about to cry, again, and she needed to speak before that happened. She had to be gone first.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know Mom’s got a boyfriend now? What am I saying? Of course, you don’t. His name is Shawn. He lives in Philadelphia. In the last two years, he’s visited us now… actually enough times that I’ve sort of lost count. He’s in town now, in fact. He’s downstairs, and I’m sure he would have plenty to say to you, too, but this is <em>my</em> turn, and I’m not planning on having another, so here it is.</p><p> </p><p>“Out there, there’s a guy who had no obligations to us at all, but he became someone very important to Mom and me, because <em>he was there</em>. And even when he isn’t there, I know he could be, if we needed him to be. He’s never once broken a promise to me, and he never will, but you… You broke the biggest one of all. You weren’t there. And it took convenience for you to be, and even then… you didn’t tell me yesterday about the wedding. What if I’d come later and you weren’t there? You got lucky.”</p><p> </p><p>“I did, I… did, I…” Her father had once looked like a giant to her, a great wonderful giant. Now he just looked small. “Maya, I want you to know that, for all my failings in life, not getting to see you grow up… But that’s on me, and I don’t deny it, I don’t. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t or didn’t love you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, good for you,” her voice felt sour, the harder it became to keep herself from crying. “Too bad you didn’t tell that to me all those years ago, when I had to make up some reason why you’d gone, because I didn’t know any better. Because of that, I spent so long being angry at the wrong person, and thinking that you’d left because of <em>her</em>, when she was the one, she… My mother is a better woman than you could ever know, and what you did to me, you did to her, too, and that almost makes me more upset than the rest. Almost. I’m still <em>so</em> upset about everything. But I won’t be, not after today, so I guess I should thank you for that. Have a nice visit, tell Willy congratulations on his wedding. I have to go.”</p><p> </p><p>The release of those words had carried her out of that room, on the last of the energy that she had to keep herself together. She left the room, made it to the elevators, and as the doors slid shut, she broke like a storm.</p><p> </p><p>No more. Never again would she blame herself or worry herself over him, over the past. She was done. But it would still hurt, just now.</p><p> </p><p>She’d reached the ground floor, and much as she hated that there were still tears on her face, she knew there were people waiting for her who would be ready to make them dry away. She could see them now.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had come to her first, and she’d pulled her into her arms, where the tears had come again, and Shawn had been right there, too. But also, there were others she had called on to stand by her today. Riley was there along with the others of the Matthews family. Smackle was there of course. And Lucas and Farkle were there. All she’d had to do was ask, and they’d been there.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we go now?” Maya asked her mother and Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>“We can go wherever you want,” Shawn told her, which she knew to mean if she didn’t want to go to the museum anymore, they didn’t have to. But she did; she wanted nothing more.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0238"><h2>238. Her Encounter With Support</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They spent most of the day at the museum. Beyond their being there to support Maya, they had all enjoyed the exhibit, every one of them. To Maya herself there were a number of memorable moments, with each of those who’d accompanied her, from Auggie Matthews by a photograph of a boy from many years past who looked remarkably like him, to Riley finding one that made her feel strangely emotional. Then there was just seeing Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews walking around together, and her mother and Shawn; he would tell her so many things, pointing out one part or another. Even Farkle and Smackle were walking as though their hands could come together at any moment. And then there was Lucas, who had perhaps won the day in Operation Cheer Up by reviving an old memory.</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s the weird stuff, do you know?” he’d quietly asked, falling into step with her. She’d smiled immediately. “Take us to the weird stuff, please?”</p><p> </p><p>“This isn’t a field trip, we can’t just ditch them,” she’d pointed out, though she very much wanted to go.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, we can,” he’d shrugged, and she had to wonder when he’d become the adventurous one, while she’d turned cautious. “It’s like he said,” Lucas nodded to Shawn up ahead. “We can go wherever <em>you</em> want,” he now nodded down to her. She looked to the rest of them, feeling a dying ember reignite itself.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, then…” she gave him a smirk before grasping his arm and pulling him away from the group.</p><p> </p><p>They hadn’t been on their own for as long as they’d been at the field trip, all of five minutes here, really. But while they had been out there, Maya had not once thought of her father. Instead she marvelled at this boy who, for a while now, had made his feelings known but also kept his word that he would let her and her own known feelings get to where she needed to be before anything more might happen. And if she ever wondered if he was still in that place with her, all she had to do was catch his eye, the way she did. And after everything these past few days, that look was all she needed. When she’d seen it, with the two of them stood before a large photograph, she’d reached for his hand, right next to hers, and he’d smiled. She had thanked him, and he had shown the same.</p><p> </p><p>After that, they’d hurried and managed to merge back with the group. If anyone had noticed their absence, they said nothing. Instead, they’d kept moving through the exhibit, while both Maya and Lucas tried not to smile.</p><p> </p><p>When they had finally left the museum – because it was closing – they had made back for Maya’s house, where, to her great surprise, she spotted a group of people sat out front waiting for them as they pulled up. Nadine, Zay, Dylan and Asher stood to come and meet the rest of them.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing here, I thought you couldn’t come today?” Maya asked, so glad to find them there.</p><p> </p><p>“That one may have stressed something of an emergency need,” Nadine revealed, indicating Riley. “So, we just… found a way. We’re cleared and at your service for the night.” And now Maya had spotted the bags piled up by the door; they were staying through to the next day.</p><p> </p><p>As they’d clambered on inside, Maya had pulled Riley back and hugged and squeezed her good, getting as much as she got in return. It was to wonder if this ‘call to emergency’ had been orchestrated back at the hotel that morning, or in the few minutes while she and Lucas had snuck away on their own. She strongly believed it might have been the second choice.</p><p> </p><p>So, the day continued, Maya’s people pooling around her to bring joy to her life as much as they reminded her just how good her life was, with or without Kermit. He had made his choice, and would have to live with it, and she had made her own, too, and couldn’t live with any other. She didn’t think of him again the rest of the night.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, she had dinner with her friends, the Matthews, her mother and Shawn. After dinner, Riley’s family had gone back home, and Shawn had gone out to retrieve any items from the Friars and Riley’s that her unplanned guests might need. It had been just the tiniest bit strange to think about Shawn interacting with Lucas’ family this way, though she said nothing.</p><p> </p><p>While he was out there, the rest of them were joined in their latest points competition at the basketball hoop by Katy Hart, who would make ten of them in two teams of five once Smackle, of all people, had convinced both Farkle and Riley to join in. The previous day’s lesson must have done more than Maya had realized, and as for her mother… She didn’t know that she’d ever appreciated this willingness to repeatedly host five, six, now eight kids in her house, overnight.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had chosen her mother for her team, of course, and Smackle, knowing she’d want to be on her side, which then led to Farkle being with them, and of course Riley. Just like that, she had landed herself with every single non-player there to play. That was alright though; she welcomed the challenge, and she couldn’t wait to see the looks on the others’ faces when her team won, which was precisely what she told them.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, okay, we’ll see,” Lucas had matched her tone, and so the game was on.</p><p> </p><p>Some of her words had been just that, but then not so much as she had assumed. Smackle was as much of a secret prodigy as the day before when she stood unopposed. Riley had all the determination and about 60% of the success, while Farkle had struggled at first, until Wunderkind Isadora Smackle had given him a few familiar pointers, and suddenly his odds had improved to near perfection. The real surprise here was Katy Hart, who never missed one shot, leaving her daughter and her friends increasingly befuddled. Eventually she’d just shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“What, where do you think she got it?” she asked, nodding to her daughter, who laughed. “Also, I may have been playing around some days while you weren’t around.”</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>knew</em> the ball kept moving while I was gone,” Maya gasped, before giving her mother a look. “We’re going to have some one-on-ones you and I someday.”</p><p> </p><p>“Say the word,” Katy grinned. She never looked so happy as when she’d made her girl happy, and she’d done that now.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn returned midway through the competition and halfway through the rallying cry of Team Newbs – as Maya called them – encouraging Smackle as she lined up her next shot. When it went in, the rest of the team cheered loudly, freezing when they spotted the stunned Shawn standing there.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey there,” Katy had breathed out, pretending like she hadn’t been shouting victory over a group of teenagers. “Want to tag in?” she asked, soon to be encouraged by Riley opting to let Shawn replace her.</p><p> </p><p>By the end of the game it had been really close, Team Jersey leading by three baskets over Team Newbs. They still had time, they could still win this, Maya believed it, and she would see it happen… she would. Four to go. She was already giving Lucas the eye to say: tie breaker, you and me. Her mother was next: point. Then Smackle: point. Farkle missed, but then Shawn went up and they were tied.</p><p> </p><p>“So, this is it, huh?” Maya asked as she stepped up. “You give it everything, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Or we could just leave it a draw,” Lucas followed.</p><p> </p><p>“Or not,” she tossed him the ball. “You, first.” Statistically, him and her facing off was a coin toss. He’d won as often as she had. She wanted it that way now.</p><p> </p><p>They started taking their shots and, as they went on, it didn’t get any closer. When she scored, he scored. When she missed, he missed. Neither of them would call it a draw anymore, and finally Shawn had cut in and taken the ball.</p><p> </p><p>“You both won. Congrats. Who’s hungry? I picked up some…” The stampede buried the word ‘snacks.’</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0239"><h2>239. Their Summer of Fun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As much as they would lament their having reached the final week of Farkle and Smackle being in Austin with them, certain things made it easier to bear. The first was that they had kept the best for last. One part of that had been more up to coincidence than anything else, as the Babineaux family summer party had been scheduled for the day before their departure. The other part, the camping trip with Pappy Joe, <em>had</em> been scheduled to precede their departure however, and so it would. This made so that today, all of them had been packing for the trip as much as their guests also packed for their return to New York, so it would be taken care of already.</p><p> </p><p>The other thing which made the last week’s arrival easier was that the three weeks they’d just gone through had already cemented this whole holiday as what they now would refer to as “The Great Summer of Texas.”</p><p> </p><p>The Great Texas Bucket had been shrinking away day by day as they crossed off one activity and the next. Some of these they couldn’t specifically say whether they had enjoyed more for the activities themselves or for the fact that they’d done them all together. Fears had been conquered, challenges crushed, discoveries made, and memories shared… It was everything they could have wanted.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had become so used to having Smackle living with her and her mom, sleeping in her room, that she dreaded the moment where that other bed would go away again. Her room might actually feel like a cavern, which she never would have imagined possible. And she would miss her roommate. She had never imagined she could come to care for Isadora Smackle just as much as she’d done, but she had, and she was confident that the feeling was mutual. All she had to do was watch the girl as she packed, looking as sullen as she’d ever been.</p><p> </p><p>At the Friar house, it was all much the same. Lucas had already deemed Farkle Minkus his friend long ago, even before ever standing face to face with him. But now, after the last five weeks, after all that had preceded it, too… he had known Zay and Asher and Dylan since they were all kids, and they’d been the greatest friends he could have asked for as he grew up. He had known Farkle Minkus for less than a year, and he felt like a brother.</p><p> </p><p>He would not say this aloud, especially not as his mother might be within earshot. If it were up to her, their house guest would never leave. Lucas had once caught her referring to Farkle and him as ‘her boys.’ She had doted on him all these weeks, and it was a credit to Farkle that he hadn’t been freaked out by it.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of them were all to come and meet up when they were ready. Pappy Joe would then come, and they would all drive out the camp site. With the increased number of passengers, and of charges to look after, Lucas’ grandfather had sought out backup wheels and eyes, and the task had fallen to Cory Matthews, who would accompany them along with Auggie. The boy was reportedly really excited for this camping trip and had been talking about it all week.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning,” Nadine’s face appeared at the door to Lucas’ room, finding him and Farkle still deep in packing. “Seriously? Can I help?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, we got it,” Lucas insisted. “Did anyone else come yet?” he asked as she came and sat next to Farkle’s open suitcase, peeping in with appraising eyes. Lucas fully expected her to reach in and refold something if she didn’t find it right, but Farkle was more orderly than she was, if that was possible.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay’s downstairs, your mom got him. Pretty sure Asher and/or Dylan will be here any…” The bell rang. “… now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Could be Smackle and Maya, or the Matthews,” Farkle suggested.</p><p> </p><p>“Nah, it’s the boys,” Nadine insisted, and so it was. Not long after though, the rest of them arrived in bulk, as Mr. Matthews had picked up the girls from the Hart house. Those two along with Riley popped in to join the rest of them, after having retrieved Zay from the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Which side’s winning now?” Farkle asked Maya when they all came in, looking at Smackle.</p><p> </p><p>“Right now, we’re at ‘in’ but we were on ‘out’ again this morning, so who knows?” she reported. The question was to do with Smackle and the matter of fishing. It had been the one part of the camping trip she continued to debate, that and maybe swimming in the lake. On the one hand she didn’t think it safe in one way or the other, but then she also felt it was the kind of thing she <em>should</em> do, to keep as a memory of this summer. She’d gone back and forth on it at least once a day for a while now.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not changing my mind again,” Smackle vowed, even though she had made that same promise before, too.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle’s packing – for camping and for home, too – had been completed. The next three nights would be spent in the woods, and then one more here, followed by the Babineaux party, and then the New Yorkers’ final night in Texas before flying home. For one moment it did feel sad all around, but it passed. They had this week, and they weren’t going to waste it being sad.</p><p> </p><p>“Luke, honey, your grandfather’s here!” Mrs. Friar called from downstairs, and so off they went, ready for the camping portion of the Great Summer.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0240"><h2>240. Their Summer of Activity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Coming back to the camp site, they could have thought no time had passed since they’d been there the last time, couldn’t possibly have been a year. They had set up their tents, which only made it feel that much more like they had never left. But finally, they were free to go about and do what they wanted, which turned into a mad dash – for the most past – to go swimming in the lake. Smackle still wouldn’t do it, and she held her ground as the rest of them went into the water. Lucas had taken it upon himself to look after Auggie as he came with them.</p><p> </p><p>The day had gone, bringing their first night, mostly quiet as they’d been reminded that they would rise early to go out on the lake to fish. The girls in their tent had all been curious to see what the verdict would be come morning on whether or not the indecisive Smackle would join them in this.</p><p> </p><p>They got their answer when they woke and found she was already up and ready to go, maybe been a little too ready. They wouldn’t argue. They all got ready, too, and then they went out fishing. A few of them looked as though they hadn’t slept nearly enough, as they caught up on some of that in the boats.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they’d made it back to the camp site, it was still uncertain whether their now eager fisher girl had enjoyed herself. She’d been mostly quiet as they’d sat out there, they all had, so now they wanted to know. She wasn’t noticing their looks. Finally, Maya just went and asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It was okay,” Smackle declared. “Not something I’d go out of my way to do a lot, but I’m glad that I did it.” When Zay had asked if this meant she would go swimming with them the next time, she’d turned to him with a frown. “Don’t be ridiculous.”</p><p> </p><p>So, she’d stayed at the camp site, where she assisted Pappy Joe with the catch of the morning, and the others had gone back to swim, now accompanied by Mr. Matthews.</p><p> </p><p>“Is he… wearing that to go swimming?” Dylan asked, as they watched their teacher tug a plastic cap over his head. Maya and Riley had laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s, uh, he’s very particular about his hair,” was all Maya could say. Of course, what she said and what she thought were two things. What she thought was ‘and now the game is on.’ Soon she’d gotten the others together into a challenge: get that cap.</p><p> </p><p>The hunt on poor unsuspecting Mr. Matthews began as peacefully as anything could. The group would go about their business, playing around just as they’d done the day before. This time though there was growing curiosity to see who would be the first to make a pass at it, and whether or not they’d succeed.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had been the first, deciding it would look less suspicious than any of them, and she had an advantage.</p><p> </p><p>“She also has the biggest disadvantage,” Maya had told the others. “She won’t be able to do it.” And she was right. They saw her try, genuinely so, but every time she raised her hand to reach, she would get a look on her face and pull her hand back. Eventually she’d given up and gone back to them.</p><p> </p><p>The others weren’t much more successful than she was, even the more confident of them. Maya looked determined to try again after she’d failed.</p><p> </p><p>“Tag team?” she’d turned to Lucas. When Riley wondered why she wouldn’t make a team with her, Maya gave her a perfect rendering of the faces she’d made when she’d tried.</p><p> </p><p>“You make an excellent point,” she bowed her head.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you have in mind?” Lucas asked, ready to give it a go, when they heard a shriek and a splash nearby. They turned and saw a victorious Auggie Matthews holding his father’s cap in the air, as the man emerged from the water with a confused look on his face.</p><p> </p><p>There was a burst of laughter and cheering from the group. They soon learned how Auggie had figured out what they were trying to do, got the idea to get his father to swim him around, as he held on to his shoulders before giving a yank to the colorful cap.</p><p> </p><p>They were not at all disappointed to have lost and instead celebrated their tiny champ. Seeing their teacher grumble over his hair had really been worth seeing.</p><p> </p><p>The second night had gone by, turning into their last day of camping. They’d spent it running around, playing games again. The girls had recruited Auggie to even out the teams, calling him their secret weapon. He happily obliged. The boys tried to sway him, but he was loyal to his sister and her friends. He’d known Maya all his life, and Smackle in the year before they moved, and Nadine through her sisters.</p><p> </p><p>How the trip could have gone so fast just fell into the same line of how the summer had gone so fast. They had made memories here they would hold on to all their lives, they knew they had. Even after two of them went back to New York, these weeks would keep them bound in such a way that it wouldn’t matter how far they went. When the last night came upon them, they welcomed it gladly. They would enjoy it together, not think of the imminent separation.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0241"><h2>241. Their Summer of Togetherness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their last night at the camp site was spent by the fire, a great peace fallen upon the campers. The night before, they had been caught up in a session of scary stories, instigated by Pappy Joe, that might have kept them all wide awake afterward, if not for how it had ended. As startled as most of them were growing, Auggie remained oddly unflappable, which came to frustrate the storyteller just a bit, and then more than just a bit, until the little boy and the big man had a rousing argument over the fire, which ended in the big man – and all of them – bursting out laughing. They were about certain now that those two were bonded for life.</p><p> </p><p>This night saw no stories as of yet, scary or otherwise. All it saw was a group of friends settled in contentment as the fire crackled at the heart of their circle. And then among the crackling, and the insect sounds and the breeze, a steady but absent sort of thumping rhythm started, which they turned to find was Zay, tapping his hands along the edge of the log he sat on, staring at the fire. Nadine, amused, had started to do the same, and as he smiled back at her, the whole thing almost sounded like a song. The others would listen, smile, laugh. Maya had had another idea for it. She started to sing.</p><p> </p><p>Out here in the silence, it felt bigger than anything, and everyone listened. They looked happy, and it only encouraged her to carry on, and get more into it, swaying along, soon bumping shoulders with Lucas at her side. It had popped a grin right out of him, and she monopolized on this reaction, leaning to that shoulder with a bit more ‘performance flair.’</p><p> </p><p>When the song had been done, all the while accompanied by the thumping Z &amp; Z, they had all cheered their singer on, and then soon it was all of them singing together, as loud and on or off key as they could be. Maya remained leaning to that shoulder as this went on, never really thinking about it too much; she was just in a good place, feeling good…</p><p> </p><p>When it did sort of dawn on her, when Mr. Matthews had turned in for the night to watch over the now sleeping Auggie, she hesitated on what to do. Did she want to move? No, not in the slightest. <em>Should</em> she move? Well, there were two ways to look at it. Either she moved and looked like she didn’t think she should be there, or she didn’t, and it was really no big deal, just a couple friends enjoying a quiet night with a fire and more friends. So really that was two votes for staying, so that was what she decided to do, sort of leaning into it a hair’s breadth more to mark her decision.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas, for his part, had been left to wonder some things of his own. He, too, had not given much thought to any of this at first. Maya was leaning to his shoulder, and he supported her gladly. Like her though, it took the two Matthews guys’ departure to make him think… She was still there, against his arm. He hadn’t dared move it at all in case she’d right herself and pull away. His arm might actually have fallen asleep by now, but he didn’t mind it.</p><p> </p><p>But now there was the thought in him of what he was meant to do going forward. If he moved to put his arm around her instead of her leaning on it, would that be weird? He was her friend, that was all… Friends could hold one another when sitting around a fire, right? And she wasn’t just <em>a</em> friend, she was his <em>best </em>friend… from New York, but still. This wouldn’t have to mean anything, it would just be them, enjoying this fire on their last night before going back home. That was all.</p><p> </p><p>And then she’d settled in a bit more, and maybe it was just as he was having this thought, because in the next moment and with no conscious decision he could recall, he’d lifted out his arm, and she’d come to rest her head to his shoulder as his arm came to rest around hers. And that was all… No eruptions, the world didn’t implode… and she didn’t move away.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been momentarily surprised by the shift, but then it had happened and it… kind of didn’t suck. It was more along the lines of wonderful, and she didn’t dare to change any part of it. She could have stayed here all night, the fire, the stars above, and him holding her close. She looked around, and it didn’t feel like too strange of a thing out of the blue. Riley and Nadine and Zay were all just sort of huddled together, and Asher and Dylan were having a competition to see who could catch the most marshmallows in their mouth after tossing one in the air, and Farkle and Smackle were pointing at the stars and chatting along.</p><p> </p><p>“I kind of want to do this every year…” she quietly mumbled to herself, wishing she could sketch all this now.</p><p> </p><p>“We can,” Lucas replied, his voice just at her ear. She hadn’t even really meant to say it to him, she’d just been thinking out loud, but when he replied, she smiled. “We will,” he declared.</p><p> </p><p>“All of us?” she asked, looking to the soon to depart New Yorkers.</p><p> </p><p>“If we can, yeah. Pretty sure my mother would fly Farkle in any time we wanted to have him around. She’s already talking about having him for Christmas.” Maya laughed, and Lucas felt the motion of that laughter under his arm, which only got him laughing, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Well if she does, make sure and tell her she needs to fly them both in or it won’t work,” she told him, and he nodded. He never wanted this night to end.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0242"><h2>242. Their Summer of Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as they had woken up the next morning they had started to pack up. They were bound back for home, where they would then have to shower and ready themselves for the Babineaux party. They would all meet there again within a few short hours.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had taken Farkle along as he left for Aunt Susanne’s house, and they met Zay as they arrived. The three boys had taken on the tasks together previously handled by the two long time friends. Farkle looked happy to do it; he’d been hearing all about this day from all of them since even before he’d come down to Austin.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, now who do we have here, boys?” a creaky little voice had them look up to find Zay’s GiGi had come to find them. In the time their two guests had been in town they had already met several of their friends’ family members, though none of them made an impression – or could ever hope to, really – as strong as the tiny woman. She had taken a particular liking to Farkle, who in turn was always so happy to see her, too, like he’d gained a grandma.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi, GiGi,” he’d greeted her with a smile, and she’d laughed, coming to hold his face in her hands. The first time she’d met him, she had mentioned how tall he was, and he’d assured her he’d been much smaller a year before. It had come to be something of a running joke, wherein she would wish she’d met him a year ago, when she wouldn’t have had to stretch out her arms so much to greet him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve packed you a few treats for your trip home and when you’re home again. Can’t have you eating whatever junk those airlines will feed you,” she scoffed.</p><p> </p><p>“Actually, it’s not that b…” Farkle started to say, until he saw Lucas and Zay shaking their heads at him. “Thanks, GiGi,” he redirected, and the woman walked back to prowl over her granddaughter.</p><p> </p><p>The others had soon started to arrive. For having all spent the last few days together, down to that very morning, their reunion seemed as though they could have been apart for just as long. They quickly offered to help in whatever tasks still needed doing and dispersed.</p><p> </p><p>In time, they were released to go and enjoy the party, so off they went. Farkle and Smackle were introduced to the family, along with Riley, who most of them were also meeting for the first time. Meanwhile, Maya was remembered fondly from the year before. A couple people remembered her specifically from her turn at the karaoke ‘stage.’ They would ask if she intended to go again this year.</p><p> </p><p>“You should,” Riley would tell Maya as they all weaved through the yard. “I want to see it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well…” Maya replied, with that tone that seemed to say, ‘I have this crazy idea,’ and sure enough… “You could come with me,” she told Riley, before turning to Smackle and Nadine. “And you. The four of us, what do you say?”</p><p> </p><p>“I say you’re on,” Nadine grinned. Riley only nodded – energetically – her approval. They turned to Smackle, unsure if this would go over for her, to perform in front of people. But she agreed at once.</p><p> </p><p>“What, I do debate,” she shrugged, making the others laugh.</p><p> </p><p>After that, the four girls disappeared for a while, deciding on a song, no doubt. The five guys left behind made a dash for the pool.</p><p> </p><p>As much as they tried not to think about it, it seemed almost impossible now not to think of how Farkle and Smackle would be leaving in the morning. Summer wasn’t actually over, they still had a couple of weeks left until school, but it still felt like it was ending today, and that made it all even more important to them… the last day of summer.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, that’s enough deliberating,” Asher declared after a while of their swimming around. “Where are the girls?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s go find them,” Dylan suggested, climbing out of the pool like a dog coming in from the rain. What plan they might have had to trail water and splash them in surprise was abandoned once they were told the girls were inside the house; they would never live down putting water all over Susanne’s – and GiGi’s – floors. So, they dried up a bit before going in.</p><p> </p><p>The girls were easy to find. They could hear half-broken singing, like someone reading/singing words written before them. That was exactly what it was, too, in this case Smackle, reading from Nadine’s phone. She had a surprisingly good voice, too. When Maya saw them though, she bolted up to bar their way.</p><p> </p><p>“Great, now we have to find another song, you guys never heard of a surprise? What would the other cowboys say?” she shook her head in ‘reprimand.’</p><p> </p><p>“They’d say, ‘hey, wait, you’re not cowboys,’” Zay piped in. The boys chuckled. The girls did, too, though Maya was glad to go on playing karaoke police.</p><p> </p><p>“Honestly, Lucas,” she shook her head at him, struggling the most here in keeping a straight face. She tried, honestly, but she just couldn’t do it, and it might have been borderline frustrating, but she kind of didn’t mind it.</p><p> </p><p>“Apologies, ladies,” he had instead embraced the role, tipping his head. “We’ll leave you be, just come back and meet us when you’re ready,” he went on, leading the guys away as he turned a smile to Maya.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0243"><h2>243. Their Summer of Celebration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fifteen minutes would go by before the girls reappeared. When the guys asked if they’d figured out what they’d do, they shrugged and insisted that they would see later. In the meantime there was food to be had and an occasion to celebrate, as Maya declared, and here another bit of secret conversation had been revealed when, as Zay wondered aloud why they would ‘celebrate’ their friends leaving, he and Nadine found out this was about them. At some point while they’d been at the camp site, there’d been talk of the party they were now enjoying, and the fact that it was essentially Zay and Nadine’s anniversary, and for that the rest of them had wanted to treat the pair in consequence.</p><p> </p><p>Rather than to sit on the ground under the tree like the year before, they had set up a table. This kind of seemed like it wasn’t much, but really it was a simple gesture and just the beginning. As they went to sit, their two friends both looking as surprised as they were amused and touched, Zay wondered when they had set this up, the table and chairs, table cloth and dishes and all, flowers… Zay swore that hadn’t been there before.</p><p> </p><p>“Whose idea was it to come check on us?” Riley asked casually. Zay pointed to Lucas almost accusingly.</p><p> </p><p>“I told him it was a bad idea.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well it was <em>my</em> idea, and I think it worked fine,” Smackle gave him a look. “Whose idea was it for <em>you</em> to go with your GiGi into the basement for fifteen minutes?”</p><p> </p><p>“How did you…” Zay asked, as Nadine, who’d been just as clueless, burst out laughing. “She is ninety-five years old! I couldn’t let her go down those stairs alone!”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we knew that, and that’s why we asked her. She was jumping at the chance to help… distract you,” Asher nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“And then the four of us,” Dylan pointed to himself, Asher, Lucas, and Farkle, “got to work, and here we are.”</p><p> </p><p>“You almost saw it a couple times before the girls came back, too,” Farkle pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>Zay turned to Nadine, standing there with a smile on her like it would never leave her face again, and he could only smile back. Maya looked to Lucas, thinking of how only a year ago they had been trying to get those two to just own up to their feelings, and now…</p><p> </p><p>“Okay but the party this year and last year weren’t really on the same days,” Nadine reminded them as they sat to their table. Some of the other guests had been looking on with curiosity of their own at this setup but now smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“The party’s where it happened though,” Lucas reminded her right back.</p><p> </p><p>That was as good of a reasoning as any, so with that they got to eating. The table had been loaded up with a bit of everything, like their meal under the tree had been the year before. They talked as they ate, recalling this time and that one throughout the summer, and much as it was primarily a celebration for Zay and Nadine, it also became something of a send off for their six weeks of fun with their visitors.</p><p> </p><p>The whole thing was rounded out in the end with the presentation of dessert, a special treat made especially for the occasion by GiGi, and the look of pure anticipation on Zay’s face when he saw it was as priceless as it could get.</p><p> </p><p>It felt like those moments they’d spent sat around the fire these past few days when they ate, or those times where they had all been at Chubbie’s, like something sort of magical happened with the nine of them sat around a table with food. As it was winding down, Maya knew it was the last time this would happen in a really long time. For the first time she felt the sadness of the impending departure win out over their whole determination to just have fun and not think about it. She had thought about it now, and it felt about as bad as it should have.</p><p> </p><p>But she stood, and she joined the others as they followed the music to the ‘stage,’ where a cousin and uncle of Zay’s were giving a very lively – and off key – performance. They didn’t mind it, and they just danced around, all of them together with their own way of dancing. It was a wonderful brand of chaos, and it chased the clouds from over Maya’s head in a flash.</p><p> </p><p>“We go up next I think,” Nadine told her, halfway through the next performance, which featured Zay’s mother and father, much to the boy’s barely disguised discomfort. Nadine and Maya tried not to laugh, and the blonde nodded. Yes, they were next, so they had to get Riley and Smackle. Nadine went.</p><p> </p><p>“So, how was I?” Lucas asked, coming up behind Maya. She turned to face him with a grin.</p><p> </p><p>“You did great, Huckleberry, you were an excellent misdirection, getting him in GiGi’s way. Do you feel bad about lying to your friend?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It was for a good cause,” he shrugged, and she beamed. There was a pause, both of them looking at each other, unsure what to say next, unsure whether to bring up the evening before, the campfire and…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, come on, we’re on!” Riley shouted.</p><p> </p><p>“Gotta go, we’re on,” Maya told Lucas with a look back to the girls, tapping his arm before she dashed off to join the others. He watched her go, planted to the spot and wondering how a year could have gone by since he’d watched her first take that stage.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0244"><h2>244. Their Summer of Music</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was just something about the way the things she was passionate about made her so happy. He’d seen it for as long as he’d known her. Her art, or even other people’s art, would bring this light out in her that was just remarkable. And in the last year, he had watched her get more and more attached to basketball. And then there was the music. He had heard her sing a few times now and it always grasped his attention so completely. He could feel just what the songs should have him feel, the happy songs and the sad ones, the ones to just make you want to move – though he would control himself on that one – the way this song did today.</p><p> </p><p>The four girls had stepped up together on the ‘stage,’ which was hardly that but still did what it was meant to, and the guests gathered around cheered on; the previous performance had been so off-key and gleefully bad, but they remembered Maya from the year before, and maybe even Nadine from before that. This had promise to be good.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas and the guys stayed near enough within sight, ready to cheer them on. They could be the loudest supporters at the girls’ games, but this was not the gym, and they would turn it down about five notches.</p><p> </p><p>There were two microphones, but rather than to split up two by two, they had decided to stick together, arms over shoulders, the two on the ends – Smackle and Nadine – holding the microphones in their free hand, keeping it close enough for all of them. Maya, with Riley on one side and Smackle on the other, had given a tip of the head to start the music, before turning to give a nod to Smackle, who looked – unsurprisingly – to be the most unsure of the four as the song began. The girl nodded back: they were good.</p><p> </p><p>And they really were. If last year’s turn on the stage had been the means to an end – or really a beginning – then this year was just about… fun, and togetherness. Before too long, all of them would feel the sadness of a parting, but you couldn’t tell by looking at them now, on or off the stage. This was just one more day in the Great Summer of Texas.</p><p> </p><p>When the song ended, the girls were given more cheers from their audience before they scampered off to rejoin their friends. Zay was almost knocked over when Nadine ran back to him, though any of his friends or family or perfect strangers who saw the smile on his face would know he probably wouldn’t have minded it at all.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought I would be fine at first, and I got scared for a few seconds, but I got through it, didn’t I?” Smackle told Farkle, who gave a nod. “This is <em>nothing</em> like a debate.”</p><p> </p><p>“You sounded wonderful,” Farkle told her, and she smiled, letting go of any insecurities or uncertainties she may have felt a moment before.</p><p> </p><p>Riley was still halfway humming their song, her arm still around Maya’s shoulders and vice versa, as they came from the stage. Maya laughed at this, with her friend’s enthusiasm as boundless as ever.</p><p> </p><p>“We should start a band!” she declared now, and Maya laughed even more. “We should, all of us girls, or… well, three of us, and maybe Rebecca most times, I guess, but really the four of us. It doesn’t matter if we’re here or there, we can still do something. We should start a band,” Riley repeated.</p><p> </p><p>“I think she’s actually serious,” Asher pointed back at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, give her a couple minutes out of the sun, she’ll be fine,” Maya chuckled, leading Riley back through the yard, the rest of them in tow. They ended up back at their tree, the vacated table still there, though some of the guests had taken its extended emptiness in stride and come to sit there and talk.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, pool it is,” Dylan shrugged at this, and they turned heel and made for the pool. Maya gave Riley all of a three-second warning, and then the two of them jumped into the water, just as they’d pulled off what clothes they wore over their swimsuits. One by one, Dylan followed, as Asher did, and Lucas, and Zay and Nadine and Farkle and Smackle. They swam and played until the sun came down.</p><p> </p><p>They finished out the night all laid out on their towels, made sleepy by a day of great activity at the Babineaux party. They could have slept right then and there, and a couple of them <em>were</em> starting to nod off, but they just stayed as they were, peaceful and happy.</p><p> </p><p>“We should start a band…” Riley reiterated, with dreams in her voice. Maya turned to look at her.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re starting high school soon,” she reminded her. “It’s going to be crazy for a while. And then a lot of us will have basketball soon… We wouldn’t even have the time.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can make time,” Nadine piped in. “I’m very good at it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I get to be in it, too, yeah?” Smackle asked, sounding like she’d been startled out of sleep.</p><p> </p><p>“You really want to do this?” Maya looked at all of them. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested, but…</p><p> </p><p>“It doesn’t mean we’re trying to be famous or anything, it can just be a thing between us girls,” Nadine told her, and Maya looked to the sky. A girl band… maybe?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0245"><h2>245. Their Summer of Friendship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Morning had come too soon. At the Hart and Friar homes, the hosts and their guests were preparing to make their way to the airport. For fear that she might not get to go with them otherwise, Riley had stayed over at Maya’s house the night before, after leaving the Babineaux party. This had led the three girls – and Nadine over Skype – to discuss this supposed band of theirs much later into the night than should have been wise, considering they had to be up early in the morning. The discussion had not been particularly productive, as it had degenerated into a competition to come up with the strangest and silliest band names. Never would it be said that they would have had it go any other way.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, when they’d had to wake up a handful of hours later, they had seen just a bit less merit in this choice. It had taken Katy Hart near on a half hour to get them to wake up, get up, and not retreat back to one bed or another, or fall asleep at the table. In hindsight, Maya couldn’t believe her mother hadn’t lost it; <em>she</em> certainly would have.</p><p> </p><p>But it was here now, and it was real. Smackle was going home, and so was Farkle. This day had once seemed so far away, hadn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Over at the Friar house, the boys had not had so much of an issue with waking up as the girls had done, though they had to contend instead with Lucas’ mother. She had set out breakfast, supposedly for the four of them, which in sheer volume of food looked more like they were hosting Lucas’ whole basketball team… and the coach. Lucas looked to Farkle, imagining him flying home after that, and the images he got were just not pretty. His father was sitting at the table, quietly drinking his coffee. When his wife had left the room briefly, he’d turned to his son and their guest.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s been in here for three hours,” he said, his desperation mixed with unmistakable adoration making Lucas smile. “Why don’t you see about getting some chairs, I called Maya’s mother, invited them to join us.”</p><p> </p><p>And, not long after, they had arrived, three tired girls ushered by Katy Hart, who went about telling Melinda Friar about the wakeup call at her house that morning. As they’d gone off together, Lucas had turned to the girls with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“You alright?” he asked Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“Food?” was all she’d say, and they went into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>Now with eight of them around the table, the load didn’t seem nearly as impossible, and everyone got to eating, the three parents talking amongst themselves while the five friends discussed past flight stories, a topic that was soon banished by Smackle, who was growing hesitant about her own upcoming flight as they went on. The subject had then turned to what they would do with the rest of their summer after today. No one had ever really wanted to think about that time, but now that it had arrived…</p><p> </p><p>To no one’s surprise, many of them in the Austin seven would be using this time to keep practicing for the upcoming tryouts in the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams, under the careful coaching of the beastie known as Riley Matthews. Beyond that, they would do as they always did, enjoying this time with their friends, now with the added challenge of not letting the start of high school throw them off in any way.</p><p> </p><p>And as was more or less expected for the New York pair, too, their activities leading up to the start of the new school year in a new school would be of a more academically minded nature. There were a few clubs they were interested in joining, and they intended to use the remaining weeks to brush up and learn more, to prepare themselves. Mrs. Friar had been so interested to hear this, to the point where Maya had leaned to whisper to Lucas at her side.</p><p> </p><p>“I think Farkle stole your mom.” He laughed, tried to pull it back, which made <em>her</em> laugh in return, and much as they tried to stop and act normal, they had received a few curious looks, to which they played innocent, getting back to their plates.</p><p> </p><p>The breakfast as a whole felt like a perfect sort of way for them to close this chapter of their summer with friends. The girls had woken up some more by the time they all packed into the two cars and took off for the airport. The drive was spent, in the Friars’ car, with more of Mrs. Friar’s talking. She told Farkle about how it wouldn’t be the same without him around, sounding like she would actually start to cry. As loud as she could be, it always came from a place of love, and they could see it.</p><p> </p><p>In the Hart car, three out of four members of the temporarily named band TXNY were hollering along to the radio, with backup vocals from their driver.</p><p> </p><p>“This is very loud,” Smackle had declared with some uncertainty at one point. “We need harmony, or else it’s only chaos is what it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“But it doesn’t count, since Nadine isn’t here, and it’s the four of us, remember?” Riley had smiled at her, and Smackle had accepted this. Chaos would do well for now.</p><p> </p><p>The drive couldn’t last forever of course, and soon they had arrived at the airport, where they were reunited with the boys and with Lucas’ parents. The bags were collected, and they went into the airport, checking in, doing everything as was needed, all the steps taken until, finally, the only one left was to say goodbye.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t even tell you what it meant to have you here,” Maya told Farkle as she held him close. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but she could hear it in her own voice, the battle was already lost on that. “You’re with me, no matter where you are.”</p><p> </p><p>“So are you,” he promised her as she pulled back; he looked sad, too. Maya had moved to Smackle now, who’d been with Riley. She looked so conflicted, and when she looked at Maya, she reached for her. It almost seemed natural to her now.</p><p> </p><p>“I left you a note, on my bed, before we left. You’ll read it when you get home, okay?” Smackle asked her, and Maya nodded.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas looked to Farkle, thinking about how he wouldn’t be there that night. They’d shared a room for six weeks, and now they wouldn’t, and it felt wrong. They would still have their calls, and that was good.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m leaving the other bed in my room,” Lucas told him. “When you come down here again, you’ll have a place, anytime.” There was a very strong possibility the bed would find itself occupied even in his absence, as his mother had started talking about adopting a puppy or a dog, in the spirit of the impending departure, and Lucas could almost see it sitting there already. He wouldn’t have been opposed. He was also sure Farkle had picked up on all this, too. He smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I hope it’s not too long until then.”</p><p> </p><p>Farkle and Smackle passed through the gates, waving goodbye to their friends and hosts. Maya reached for Riley’s hand, knowing she’d be as emotional as she was. Now they were gone, and soon they would watch that plane take off into the sky. The now six of them, having seen the pair off, went on their way to the parking lot to start for home.</p><p> </p><p>“They could come back for Christmas, right? Or New Year’s?” Riley asked Maya as they followed Katy toward the car, her voice sad but optimistic.</p><p> </p><p>“Who needs an occasion?” Maya countered. “Let them come for a boring weekend in November… an uneventful couple of days in March…” Riley liked that.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, wait! Maya! Riley!” They stopped and turned to see Lucas, dashing toward them. “My parents said I could go with you, if that’s alright?” he looked to Maya’s mother. There was no plan, he just wanted to be with his friends. Katy agreed at once.</p><p> </p><p>“We could go to the movies?” Maya suggested, as they got in the car. “We can see what the others are doing, probably still sleeping… like normal people…” Both Riley and Lucas were on board. They couldn’t think of anything better to cure the separation blues.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0246"><h2>246. Their Start in the New</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had not been this nervous about going to school since the day she’d started at her new school in Austin two years before. She was doing that again, today. She was starting at a new school. The difference here was… so was everyone else in her year. The other difference was that she wasn’t new to the city, and she had friends there at the ready.</p><p> </p><p>Despite all that, she woke up that day before the sun was up, because she couldn’t sleep any longer. Her brain was firing too many thoughts and she couldn’t have silenced it if she tried. When her mother came to wake her up at her normal time, she found her already awake, all dressed and ready, drawing in her sketch book.</p><p> </p><p>“That bad, huh?” her mother asked, and Maya looked up to find her smiling like she wanted to laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s so funny?” she frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing, no,” her mother promised, banishing the smile as she approached to see what she was drawing. “Alright… not what I was expecting,” she tilted her head. Maya hadn’t set out with any idea when she’d sat in the bay window. She’d just started drawing, and what had come out was some invented sort of landscape.</p><p> </p><p>“I figured if I focused on that I wouldn’t focus on other things,” Maya shrugged. She closed the sketchbook, went to put it and the pencils away before leading her mother out of the room.</p><p> </p><p>In her time drawing, she’d more or less reached a conclusion as far as her concerns for high school. It wasn’t about the place; it was the people. And it wasn’t about the ones who knew her. It was about the ones that didn’t. The older kids didn’t worry her all that much, but the teachers… She had established herself as a good student in the past two years, surpassing all her own expectations and those of others. Now she was starting back at the bottom. What if it all got to be too much and she just couldn’t do it? She’d gotten to a point where she had started to fight back against her insecurities, where she could tell herself ‘no, that’s not how it’s going to be, not this time.’ But today… it was taking longer.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I was terrified, the first day of high school, too,” her mother told her. “I had a friend, her older sister had told us both just complete horror stories, all through summer, about what it would be like.” Maya stared at her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“I assume there’s a ‘but’ coming, can we just speed that up?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, oh!” her mother laughed awkwardly, clearing her throat. “<em>But</em>,” she nodded, “Once we actually got there, we saw it really wasn’t that much different. Some things were, sure, but there’s always going to be something new, something different. Things would get real boring, real fast otherwise. You get comfortable, and you don’t push as much.” It sounded like something Mr. Matthews would say, but also it was very much her mother. And it actually did make her feel better.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you’re getting good at this,” she smiled to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, right?” Katy laughed, and Maya did, too. “Alright, now breakfast and off you go.”</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had offered to drive her the night before, but Maya wanted to take the bus, and so she did. It was a new route, and she wanted to get used to it. She wanted to focus on it, too, but that was a bit harder.</p><p> </p><p>She’d gotten to thinking about today, and all the other days, for this year, and the others after that. It was strange to imagine she would be nineteen by the time she was through with this school. They would all be grown, all her friends… What would their lives be like then?</p><p> </p><p>Would she still be an artist? Would it continue to give her the same feeling it did now, to draw, to paint, to just look at art? Would she be some kind of star athlete, part of their girls’ basketball team, or would they not have her? Would their little Band of Four (as currently named) actually become a thing? Would it expand beyond what they’d made of it in the past few weeks?</p><p> </p><p>She would have loved nothing more that morning than to go back and sit on those steps in front of her school… her old school. Everything was fine when she was there. Bit by bit her friends would show up and sit with her, and all would be…</p><p> </p><p>No, her mother was right. She had to grow. They all did. They were starting a new chapter, a blank canvas.</p><p> </p><p>She had almost missed the stop for Riley’s house. Of course, she couldn’t go out there and leave her behind. They would walk up there together. Her friend looked so truly optimistic and happy that morning. If she hadn’t known her any better, she might have just shrugged, but she knew a part of that was overcompensating just a bit. Of course, she was nervous, too. Well, Maya decided she could be strong for her, to show her that they would be fine.</p><p> </p><p>They went and got on the bus, and they started for their new school. One year ago, Maya had started the year without knowing Riley would be there with her. Now she did, and it felt right. They had thought of this moment, hadn’t they? They’d been curious about what it would be like to be in high school. Maya had promised they would be there for each other, no matter what, and now… now they were actually doing it, when for a year it had been an impossibility.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0247"><h2>247. Their Start in the Unknown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When he had been suspended, as much as he wanted to get back to his friends, there had been a part of him who could have taken his potential transfer to a new school and welcomed it. To go to a place where he wasn’t known, where his past wouldn’t follow him, where he could start anew…</p><p> </p><p>That memory had been in his head as he prepared that morning. He <em>was</em> headed into a new school now, with only his classmates following along. His record was bound to follow him, too, but it couldn’t possibly follow him the same way, could it? He had a chance at a fresh start, and he was going to take it.</p><p> </p><p>The summer had been the best of his life, and he was confident his friends felt much the same way. Even after Farkle and Smackle had gone, the seven of them had carried on the spirit of the Great Summer of Texas as best they could. To Lucas, the highlight in those last weeks was the arrival of Dash into the family.</p><p> </p><p>According to his mother, the dog was called Lulu, and they could hear her call her that many times, to little effect. But Lucas had called her Dash, because that was what she did whenever he’d be around, she’d dash right to him, tail wagging and looking up at him like he was the world. She was still a puppy, but she would grow tall before long. And Lucas was happy to see how she took to the bed across from his, though more often than not he would wake up to whimpering at the foot of <em>his</em> bed, leading him to reach down and pull little Dash up to stay with him. He anticipated once she was able to jump on to his bed unaided, he would wake up to that chocolate-colored ball of fur sitting there. He was alright with that.</p><p> </p><p>Dash had been happily welcomed by his friends, of course, and in all those days since her arrival, she had been a constant companion to their activities, being held in turn by any one of the group, though if he had to pinpoint favorites, he could do it easily.</p><p> </p><p>At home, his mother had expressed some half-hearted frustration, first over the issue of the name (even Lucas’ father wouldn’t call her Lulu, pointing out the similarity to their son’s name), and then in how ‘Lulu’ followed Lucas more often than she did her. Lucas had reminded her that soon he would start school, and then they’d have hours every day.</p><p> </p><p>That morning, Dash had been so fast at his heel, like she knew her favorite guy was going away. He’d had to be careful or she would have followed him right out the door.</p><p> </p><p>He went to wait for the bus, his thoughts moving back from the dog to the upcoming morning, the start of high school. He tried not to be, but he <em>was</em> nervous, how could he not be? He always knew what to expect before, more or less, but he had no idea now. They’d visited the school, but they hadn’t been a part of it yet. They were part of it now.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted all of them to make it through all this, the years to come. Four years from now, he wanted it to be as it was now, with the seven of them friends, caps, gowns, all of it. He knew not <em>everything</em> would stay exactly the same. He didn’t want that, nor did he expect it to happen. But if it could be that they managed to hold on to each other in those years, then it would be all he could want. There would be more to it, of course, and he wouldn’t pretend his mind hadn’t gone where it had gone. Surely by then…</p><p> </p><p>He was joined by Zay on the bus. He didn’t have to guess how his friend was feeling; he only had to listen to the amount of words that came out of his mouth in the next few minutes. All Lucas could do was listen, though his mind might have wandered after two or three minutes.</p><p> </p><p>They had nothing to worry about, did they? Yes, they were starting out at a new school, the younger ones… but so what? They were going to school, and really that was all it was. They’d been in school most of their lives, that was just how it was. When he’d been in the sixth grade, did he mess with the little kids? No, never. Some kids did, but that was them, and anyone who tried to do the same to his friends wouldn’t get past him.</p><p> </p><p>It might have been that thought that gave him most pause. Wasn’t this how his old troubles had started? What if things got to a point where he had no choice but to act? What else could he do if that happened? He couldn’t stand seeing any of them be hurt in any way.</p><p> </p><p>What if something happened, right at the start of the year? His fresh new start could be taken away in an instant, and then it’d be four years of working his way back from it.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, man, you okay?” Zay tapped his arm and Lucas turned to him. “What’s going on?”</p><p> </p><p>“First day,” he shrugged, knowing Zay was right there with him on that, though maybe for different reasons. And here he was, getting back into his talk as though he’d never stopped for a second. That was all in Zay, wasn’t it? He would go on and on, but it didn’t stop him from paying attention to his friend.</p><p> </p><p>They reached their stop, climbing off the bus and starting for the school. It all felt normal, though it wouldn’t so much once they reached the building. It <em>wasn’t</em> the same, not by a long shot. No steps out front, and so, so much bigger than their middle school. That brief moment of feeling the old routine would disappear in an instant.</p><p> </p><p>He really couldn’t wait until it was him and Zay, and Maya, and Riley, and Nadine and Dylan and Asher. When it was them, the rest couldn’t be so bad.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0248"><h2>248. Their Start in the Group</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya and Riley were the first of their group to arrive at the new school. There were people everywhere, walking up and into the building, or standing around, talking with friends, welcoming those others who’d only just arrived… Maya was so used to arriving to a quiet path and empty steps. This was kind of overwhelming.</p><p> </p><p>   “Well it’s the first day, right?” she told Riley after a while. Her friend was quietly taking in her surroundings with wide eyes. “Let’s go sit somewhere, okay?” Maya pulled at her arm and brought her to an empty bench, maybe the only one in the area. The others had better get there soon or they might have had no space left.</p><p> </p><p>The first one to arrive was Nadine, who looked just as startled as they’d been. When Maya waved at her, she ran at them like they were dry land and she’d been lost at sea. She fell into the space her two friends opened up by sliding aside, and then they turned to her, happy to have her there.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did they all come from?” she complained.</p><p> </p><p>“Well here, apparently.” All three of them knew what it was like to transfer schools, unlike the male half of their group, and still this was more overwhelming than that; they hadn’t even made it into the building yet.</p><p> </p><p>Dylan, Asher, Joey and Rebecca arrived next, and while Rebecca was able to sit with the other girls, the boys were left to stand.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, isn’t that Zay’s cousin over there?” Dylan asked, pointing to a group of girls standing by another bench. Maya recognized her, from two summer parties and a few encounters at Zay’s house.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, isn’t she a junior?” she asked, and Dylan nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“She was Ash’s first kiss,” he chuckled before getting tapped on the arm by Asher. “Three years ago,” Dylan went on like he hadn’t felt it, or the next one at this. “Hey, Alicia!” he waved, and now Asher pulled at him so that he’d stop. Luckily for both of them, there were too many loud people between them, and she hadn’t seen or heard.</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously, man?” Asher gave him a look, while his twin at his side had the face of someone who knew more than he was allowed to say. Dylan just grinned, looking at his best friend like he was singing a little tune in his head that sounded an awful lot like ‘Asher and Alicia sitting in a tree…’ And Asher being Asher, and this being Dylan, he was incapable of staying mad. So, he turned back to his friends. “Anyway… pretty crowded, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“I haven’t seen anyone from our class yet,” Riley pointed out, looking around.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re probably too shy to show themselves,” Maya frowned. She’d been looking for their missing pair, thinking they might have gotten lost in the masses of kids. But then she found them, making their way along, eyes seeking. They couldn’t see her or the others. So, she stood up on the bench.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas! Zay! Over here!” Lucas was the first to turn at the sound of her voice, and she smiled as she saw they were coming their way, before Nadine pulled her back down.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s not draw too much attention, okay?” she pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I helped your Tall Z boyfriend find us,” Maya countered, and Nadine retracted at once. The guys finally cut through, joining the other three who stood around the four girls on the bench.</p><p> </p><p>“How many teenagers can there be in Austin?” Zay asked, still looking around. “Oh, hey Alicia!” he spotted his cousin before turning to the girls on the bench. “Did you know I caught the two of them making out once?” he told them, throwing a look to Asher, who looked affronted at once.</p><p> </p><p>“We weren’t making out, it was one kiss, okay?” he told Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“For ten seconds?” Zay replied. The others were watching this exchange with so much amused interest they had all but forgotten about the overwhelming feelings of a moment ago.</p><p> </p><p>“It was a dare, okay? I was like eleven, and she had those eyes…”</p><p> </p><p>“I always thought her eyes were a lot like Zay’s,” Dylan commented off-hand, and the look that passed between Asher and Zay had finally been too much. Now the girls on the bench were laughing.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re really not,” Asher insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we look nothing alike,” Zay added, and Asher agreed.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we please find another subject?” Asher asked, and the poor guy looked so flush and exasperated, so they let him be.</p><p> </p><p>“Now we’re all here, we might as well go inside, yeah?” Lucas suggested. The nine of them took in their surroundings, the press of people was still just as strong.</p><p> </p><p>“We stick together, no one gets left behind,” Maya declared as she stood.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah!” Riley chimed in, getting up, too.</p><p> </p><p>They moved toward the doors to the high school. It almost didn’t seem possible that they were here to go to classes all day. Sooner or later it would calm down, wouldn’t it? By the next day and the one after that, this would become routine.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0249"><h2>249. Their Start in the School</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas knew he had been here before, like all of them, when they’d taken the tour, but this morning he walked through those doors and it felt as though those memories had never happened. This place felt brand new. He looked to the others, and they had those same looks in their eyes. It reminded him vaguely of the day when he had started middle school, back when he’d been a grade above his friends, and then a year later – weeks before Maya had come along – when the rest of them had come along and he had started it all over again. His first time, he had hated it. He had always been older than his friends, sure, but they had been in the same school at least, they’d see each other at the start of the day, at recess, at lunch, they’d head home together… When he’d gone to middle school, he’d been on his own. Sometimes he thought maybe it had been the start of his problems. Then he’d been suspended, and when he returned to school the next fall, with his friends, too, in some ways he had been better, knowing the school more than they did, but even so, he had the aftermath of his suspension to deal with. They’d come in for the first time, and they’d had a similar look on their faces, but never as pronounced as the one they had now.</p><p> </p><p>“What do we do now?” Riley asked. Silence stretched over them.</p><p> </p><p>“Lockers,” Maya finally said. “Let’s go find our lockers.” As they went to do that, the conversation turned to decoration, some of them saying how they’d brought pictures to put in their lockers, and any number of things to make them their own.</p><p> </p><p>There were many students crowded over the banks of lockers where all of them would find their own; the idea had been shared by others. Thanks to this, at least, they had been reunited with some of their middle school classmates. They were all in that same locker area, and that knowledge was the biggest relief they could have found beyond their group coming together. Around these lockers they weren’t so deep into the new and the unknown.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas put his things into his locker. As decorations went, he didn’t have much yet, beyond a picture taken over the summer, the seven of them, with Farkle and Smackle and Joey and Rebecca at Chubbie’s one night. It had been one of the rare times where it had been all eleven of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” a hand cut over his shoulder, sticking a postcard sized drawing of what he recognized as a smaller version of the signs waved through their games back in middle school. FRIAR 36. He looked back to find Maya smiling at him. She held a stack of similar signs for the others of their group. “I know soon we’ll have new colors, maybe new numbers, but I wanted us to have these anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” he told her, “Looks great.” He looked back at the door. One thing added to his one picture, and already it felt like he was making his mark on this place. It might not have seemed like much, but to him it meant a whole lot, and he guessed it would to the others, too. “What about Riley? She’s not on the…” Maya answered by pointing off to their friend’s door, where he spotted the small drawing. Hers was not a jersey, but it followed the theme, showing her in full on beastie coach mode. Lucas smirked. “Perfect.”</p><p> </p><p>Their lockers were stocked now, and they had to start thinking about finding their first class. At least their schedules looked a lot alike, if not identical. And their first class was together, so they made their way along, a block of shoulders locked together.</p><p> </p><p>Their very first high school class would be English. They could deal with that, yeah?</p><p> </p><p>They reached the classroom to find only a handful of others had arrived already. That was good; they could figure out their seating arrangement. Nine of them, that made it easier, three by three, no sweat. But then what if their teacher made them sit in alphabetical order or something? No, they would take their chances.</p><p> </p><p>There were five columns of desks, and soon they had taken up the front three seats of those middle columns. Into the third row went Asher, Joey, and Rebecca. Into the second row went Dylan, Zay, and Nadine. And into the front row went Riley, Maya, and Lucas. In 7<sup>th</sup> grade, Maya had been behind him, in 8<sup>th</sup> grade she had been in front. Now she was to his right, and as much as part of him would miss when she’d lean back and sit her elbow on his desk, he was liking this new set up, too.</p><p> </p><p>“My brother had this teacher when he went here,” Dylan told them, and they looked at him. “He said she was half the class’ favorite and the other half’s least favorite.”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that mean?” Riley asked, blinking.</p><p> </p><p>“Probably ‘if you do the work, you’ll love her, if you don’t…’” Nadine guessed. “So… we should be okay, yeah?” No one really answered, though they did feel a bit reassured. “Can we go back to my house after school today? Told my mom I’d watch my sisters.”</p><p> </p><p>“Baby Z loves me,” Zay nodded, and Nadine chuckled, though it was absolutely true of her littlest sister.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I’m going wherever all of us go,” Maya put in her vote, and the others did the same. They would head to the Zhu house after school. Now they just had to make it through the day.</p><p> </p><p>Their new English teacher soon arrived, and there seemed to be a collective breath that said, ‘here goes nothing.’</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0250"><h2>250. Their Start in the Present</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They had made it halfway through morning before their group was split, nine gone four different ways, then merged in two, then reunited at last for lunch. For sure, after they’d gone through English and Biology together, splitting up had not felt as difficult as it did at the beginning. Though it <em>had</em> felt like whatever uncertainties they’d found appeased by having to focus on class and teachers suddenly came to reassert themselves. They could make it through two periods separated, couldn’t they?</p><p> </p><p>Maya had nearly been bowled over by Nadine as she found her outside the cafeteria. It was hard to do anything but welcome the gesture; Nadine was an enthusiastic hugger, with matching talent. And maybe for being parted over the last two periods, Maya had missed her so, so much, just as she’d missed Asher and Joey, even Zay, for the most recent period. They had managed to squeeze all nine of them around a table, the better to share in their morning.</p><p> </p><p>Of the nine of them, there were two pairs – Maya and Riley being one, Rebecca and Lucas being the other – who had the exact same schedule, although Asher and Nadine did, too, except in seventh period. In third period, while these two had advanced algebra, Maya, Riley and Zay had regular algebra. The others had their electives, in Lucas and Rebecca’s case wood working, while in Dylan and Joey’s case – and to the amusement of all – it was choir.</p><p> </p><p>Maya remembered how amused they had been, even when they had first heard. Riley had asked if this was show choir or something, but no, it was simply choir. Asher had been stunned to hear his shy twin’s choice, but Joey had said it was the easiest way he could think of to help him be less shy. And Dylan had chosen it for more of a personal reason: his stepmother was their teacher. It felt like it was right where he needed to be.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait to see you in a little bow tie,” Riley said, as he and Joey talked about their first class. “Or is it a tie? Or is it robes…” The ideas were endless, Maya could see it in her eyes, and she tugged her arm to bring her back to reality.</p><p> </p><p>“What about you guys? What are you making? Paper weight? Napkin holder?” Maya turned to Lucas – at her side – and Rebecca. She had been kind of curious, to be honest.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing yet, we have to come up with a project, but we won’t be starting that for a while,” Lucas told her.</p><p> </p><p>“How long before you show up in French with wood bits in your hair?” she teased.</p><p> </p><p>That was their fourth period, just before lunch, the four of them and Dylan. Their teacher was old, sort of grumpy, but at the same time they almost didn’t mind it. They could tell they would learn a lot from him.</p><p> </p><p>“I hear if you disrupt the class, Monsieur Legrand makes you learn and recite a long bit of text. Doesn’t tell you when, could be days, weeks, months, so you have to be ready,” Rebecca chimed in. Lucas turned to Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, so no wood bits in the hair,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>“Got a comb handy?” she agreed.</p><p> </p><p>While the five of them were in French that morning, learning – or revising – how to introduce themselves and talk about themselves, the other four had been in Computer Science, and Nadine’s response of ‘it was computery’ was all that was said on the subject.</p><p> </p><p>They’d have their next period together at least, before splitting again and reuniting in the eighth and last of the day. But what mattered here wasn’t the morning before or the afternoon to come. What mattered was lunch, now, everyone together. Maya looked at all of them, and it felt like they could actually be starting to adjust. It wasn’t so new a thing anymore, not after four classes, but then when they stopped and pulled back of course it was different, all of it. School may have been school, but it just couldn’t be the same at all.</p><p> </p><p>This didn’t feel like <em>their</em> school yet. To Maya it was a lot like that first night, in her new house. It was her house, she was going to be living there, but she’d had no connection to it yet. It had taken time to get there, but then she <em>had</em> gotten there, and she hadn’t felt it happen when she had.</p><p> </p><p>She needed to get to that point with this place. Until she did, she would feel off, almost a stranger, despite her friends. Maybe in seventh period, her art class, maybe then she would get to sort it all out.</p><p> </p><p>“So, let’s see if I got this,” Zay counted off his fingers, “Fifth period, all of us in US History. After that, me and Nadine and the twins in Spanish, and the rest of you in Computer Science. After that, Lucas, Joey, Dylan and Rebecca in Algebra, Riley, Maya, and Nadine in art, and Asher and me in Creative Writing, before we’re all off to P.E..”</p><p> </p><p>“Nailed it,” Dylan nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Creative Writing?” Maya remembered asking when <em>he’d</em> said about his elective. “Since when do you write?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t… yet…” Zay admitted. “But I happen to have a lot of creativity in me, and it’s in the name.” All Maya could imagine was her mother deciding he was meant to be a playwright, not an actor as she’d believed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0251"><h2>251. Their Start in the Past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They left the cafeteria, briefly retreating to their lockers again. Lucas was starting to actually feel it, this place… maybe it was just that he’d had a good morning, that they’d <em>all</em> had a good morning. For all they knew that bit of confidence would get squashed all over again, but he chose to remain confident, if only for how it could carry among all of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Farkle texted,” he told the others, smiling when he saw it on his phone.</p><p> </p><p>“He did?” Maya and Riley spoke at once, falling in at either side of him to see. The message was short, but it made it clear: <em>he</em> was not having a good day. All of them wished they could help him, but what could they do, really?</p><p> </p><p>“Better not tell him how our day’s going, right?” Zay asked. They shook their heads but decided to call him and Smackle that afternoon. “I’m just saying, his dad’s got money, just send them here, family, all of it. So what if it’s New York, right?” Maya and Riley looked up, and he took a step back. “Forget I said anything,” he laughed nervously.</p><p> </p><p>“Class time?” Lucas cut in, and the ‘tension’ broke, though Maya passed Zay with something of a ‘I’ve got my eye on you’ gesture. “Rookie move, man,” Lucas told his friend.</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t thinking, okay? It’s a big day!”</p><p> </p><p>They walked into US History, and the buzz was alive. As they heard from some of the others, their teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was supposedly the toughest one in the bunch. She took nothing less than perfection, and kids had been running off crying from her class for as long as she’d been around.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s been nice knowing you guys,” Maya nodded, making to turn for the door, as a joke… mostly. Not knowing this, Lucas stopped her by the shoulders, turned her back. She looked a bit startled for it, stealing a glance to him. “I <em>was</em> kidding.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh…” he bowed his head with a nervous chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, might not be a bad idea,” Zay looked ready to make his own attempt at a run.</p><p> </p><p>“She can’t be that bad, right?” Riley’s laugh made her sound as though she could be Zay’s buddy in running. “Is it too late to go steal my dad or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well…” Asher blinked, looking through the doorway, and when they turned, they found…</p><p> </p><p>“Dad?” Riley blinked. “What are you doing here? I didn’t forget my gym clothes, did I?” Mr. Matthews gave her a smile before addressing the others, just as the bell rang.</p><p> </p><p>“Mrs. Wilson injured herself during the summer and will be out for most of – if not the entire – year. I’m Mr. Matthews, for those who don’t know me already, and I’ll be your teacher.” The group of nine was left in shock by this, while the others cheered.</p><p> </p><p>“How long have you known about this?” Maya asked Riley, who was now raising her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Mr. Matthews, sir, how long ago did they hire you?” she asked their teacher in her best ‘here you’re my teacher and not my father’ voice.</p><p> </p><p>“It was confirmed just this morning,” he told her. “Now everyone, please take your seats and let’s begin.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was relieved, in more ways than one. The obvious one was that they wouldn’t have to deal with strict Mrs. Wilson, but really, having someone like Mr. Matthews here might have been one of the best things. He knew the man would be good to them and <em>for</em> them, and in the unknown of it all, that could go a long way.</p><p> </p><p>They resumed their seating as they’d done in earlier classes, locking down their cube. Lucas could see the others were glad for this turn as well once the shock had worn off some. Maya, at his side, looked like this was one thing, like the safety of lockers, that would be a point of ease for her, where she knew how it all worked and she didn’t have to worry. He wished that for her, too.</p><p> </p><p>When the class ended, four of them took off for Spanish class, while the rest of them, bound for computer science, waited as Riley talked to her teacher/father.</p><p> </p><p>“So, he was at our old school for a year, and now he’s going to be here?” Dylan asked. “What happens when Mrs. Wilson comes back?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t know,” Lucas shrugged. “Maybe she won’t, and he’ll just stay.”</p><p> </p><p>Riley soon joined them. They were more than halfway through this first day now, and it was encouraging, like breaking past the peak of a rollercoaster. The bottom couldn’t be too far off now.</p><p> </p><p>In no time they would split again and remerge, finding each other for gym class. By then it would really feel like the day was done, and they would know they had survived their first high school day in peace. Then they would head off to Nadine’s house, and it would be any other after school afternoon.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0252"><h2>252. Their Start in the Future</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d been sort of absently replaying something in her mind all through this day, for no reason apparent, and then, in gym class, it had finally become apparent to her. The moment of realization had taken her so by surprise that she’d very nearly been knocked in the head by a ball in flight. She’d caught it, on reflex alone, and her classmates had been too impressed to notice what had preceded the catch.</p><p> </p><p>The thing that had been bugging her went all the way back to that morning, when they’d gone into their first class. They had all briefly argued the seating arrangement before settling on the one they’d gone with. And she was very much satisfied with the result, she was, that wasn’t an issue. The thing that had been giving her a hang up was <em>how</em> she’d ended up where she had, with the neighbors she had. To her right, Riley, to her left, Lucas. Riley had gone so far as to note the alliteration, and even with her: Maya in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>Now she knew this was little more than distraction. She had been thinking they’d be sat as they’d been in the pas two years, one in front of the other. Instead, they were now side by side. Sitting in a column, they couldn’t see one another’s face unless the one in front turned around, a maneuver that was complicated by their being in class. Side by side… well it was very easy to sneak a glance, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Riley had insisted for her to sit next to her, in the front row, and then Zay, he’d gone to sit behind her right away. So, Lucas had gone and sat next to her. It had been bugging her, and now she knew why: those two, they’d done it on purpose, to make it so she and Lucas sat together. She could think of only one reason why they’d want to do it.</p><p> </p><p>The day was over. First day of high school, done. They’d been so stressed when it had started, and then it had ended and it was just… ended. They were now headed to Nadine’s house, talking all along the way about their afternoon. History had of course been far from what they had ever expected it to be once Riley’s dad had come along. Then after computer science, there’d been art class, drawing class, and that had been Maya’s favorite so far, no doubt. Their teacher was a petite sort of woman with an accent they would not have placed unless she told them she was from Wales, which she did. She had come to Texas on a whim, a few years ago, and now here she was. There was such a wonderful energy about her that Maya had loved her instantly. And then gym class, well… for her it was all about the realization, to the rest of them it was her catch.</p><p> </p><p>Arriving at the house, Mrs. Zhu had dropped off her youngest into her eldest’s arms with some quick instructions before heading out the door. Nadine’s other sisters, Marley and Michaela, were already there, doing their homework. Joey and Rebecca had gone their own way, so it was the seven of them, plus the two girls at the table and the baby kept nearby. Dylan would look on to Marley and Michaela’s elementary school homework and jokingly ask if they could switch.</p><p> </p><p>“With them, you probably could,” Nadine told him, and her sisters laughed. It wasn’t so bad in the long run, and once they were done, they were free to do as they pleased. This turned of course into Dylan, Asher and Lucas ‘chasing’ the squealing little sisters, while Zay went around with ‘Baby Z’ in his arms. This left Maya, Riley and Nadine to watch them, as amused as they were stunned. When Nadine went to get a bottle ready for her baby sister, Maya grabbed her chance and pulled Riley aside.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Riley asked her, and Maya froze. She knew she wanted to ask her, but then there was a brief bit of doubt that took her up, like… What if she’d read the situation wrong? What if she went and told her something she had been keeping to herself all this time and Riley wasn’t even aware of it yet? Except she kind of was, wasn’t she? From day one of her being in Austin, she had assumed something might have been going on between Lucas and her. Maybe that was all it was, and she didn’t really know… just how close it was to her and him being… her and him.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>could</em> tell her. She might have told her a long time ago; she was her best friend after all. But she hadn’t told her, and she could think of many reasons why not, all of them valid. Biggest of all maybe was that she knew what might happen. This was Riley, of the great House Matthews, schemers of the realm. The seat arrangement with this morning, if it was as she’d thought, was proof enough. And it might set things in motion she and Lucas had been keeping stilled for reasons… her reasons, not his, she knew… she knew… “Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“You and Zay, this morning, when we got to English class and we were going to decide where to sit, did you…” she was unsure how to word the next part, but then maybe she wouldn’t have to. The look on Riley’s face right then might have been all she needed as confirmation. Her friend was trying so hard to keep a smile down and it was twisting her face all out of sorts. “Riley,” she tapped her finger to the other girl’s cheek and the smile escaped like sunlight through an opening in pulled curtains.</p><p> </p><p>“We did nothing,” Riley said despite this telling smile. “What did we do?” Maya gave her a frown.</p><p> </p><p>“You two, next to Dylan, have the worst poker faces, so come on…” she insisted, but then that smile had migrated into that face she knew well… the schemer face.</p><p> </p><p>“What did we do, Maya?” she asked innocently, and Maya wished she didn’t feel so powerless against this.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hey, check this out,” Zay came to them then, oblivious, with the baby in his arms. He stopped and made a face, making the little one’s face burst into a smile, then giggles. They could tell him all they wanted that she was a baby and she would respond like this to anyone, but they didn’t want to ‘break’ his bond with ‘Baby Z.’ “What are you guys up to?”</p><p> </p><p>Riley looked from one to the other, as Maya went to ask him about that morning. Before she could say a word, Riley told Zay that she, Maya, wanted to hold the baby. And the next thing she knew, she had the littlest Zhu in her arms while the others scampered off.</p><p> </p><p>“Traitors!” she whisper-shouted at them before looking back to the girl in her arms. “They’re weird, right?” she asked her, pointing to Riley and Zay. The baby giggled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” It was hard to be annoyed or confused with that little face looking up at her, that little hand grasping her finger. “Come on, I hear there’s a bottle with your name on it,” she smiled, carrying her into the kitchen. “Your boyfriend’s weird,” she told Nadine. The eldest Zhu chuckled, bringing the bottle. Maya took it, held it for the baby.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me something I don’t know. This morning I wanted to sit next to you in the front row and he just went like ‘No!’” she mimed. Maya looked up at her. “Guess he just really wanted us to sit side by side,” Nadine shrugged with a smile. “Hey, at least it keeps things the same for us, more or less. I get to look at him making that face when he takes notes,” she now mimed the face in question.</p><p> </p><p>To Maya, it only confirmed what Riley wouldn’t, about her intentions. And she had to wonder about it… Just what had they based these actions on, what did they know or think they knew? So, what was she going to do now? She couldn’t ask without tipping her hand. The thing was… maybe a part of her was starting to want to. She could only keep this to herself for so long.</p><p> </p><p>The afternoon had ended with all of them playing a dance video game in the Zhu basement. It had come down to Maya, Nadine, Zay, Dylan, and Marley and Michaela Zhu in the end. The little sisters were flooring them all.</p><p> </p><p>Sooner or later they had to head home, and so they did. The next morning it was back to school, second day, doing it all over again. Maya focused on that morning more than anything, on what they would do, on having another go in drawing class…</p><p> </p><p>Even in French class, in computer science, she’d been set to sit next to Lucas, Riley on the other side… ‘What did we do’ indeed…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0253"><h2>253. Their Families in Place</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first month of high school now behind them, they remembered their nervousness as no more than memories, as something behind them. They had adjusted, found their way. Oh, it wasn’t without its difficulties. The workload was already more than what they’d previously known, but after a while even this was getting to be familiar to them, and they just got through it like before. And then there was their status as freshmen, making them the ‘little guys’ all of a sudden. They weren’t in trouble though; they had connections. Having Zay’s cousin and Asher’s first kiss partner as part of the junior class revealed itself to be their ace in the hole. All they’d needed was for Alicia to acknowledge them once, and suddenly they were untouchable. It had become something of a running gag between them to wonder whether Alicia had done it for Zay’s sake or Asher’s.</p><p> </p><p>Now that they had that month behind them, it was really to their benefits, with two big things coming up for all of them. The first, which they’d known about and been preparing for since before the school year had ever started, was of course the tryouts for basketball. For as long as they’d known however, they hadn’t expected it to be as contested as it was for a while in the last week or so. Nadine had shown up at Maya’s house one night, saying she was thinking she wouldn’t go out for the girls’ team after all.</p><p> </p><p>Her reasons were valid enough. She had one advanced class this year and was looking to add a couple more next year. She would have to work at it this year, and the team could get in the way – or <em>she</em> could get in the way of the team. Maya had listened to her, and she might have just taken it and moved on, but she could see plainly she didn’t <em>want</em> to give up basketball. That, along with the thought of being on that new team without her, had made Maya argue for her remaining, at least trying out. Nadine was still unsure, so Maya had made a pact with her, one which some might call foolish on her end.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine would try out, and if she got on the team, Maya would not only help her study, but she would follow her lead. She would get her grades up somehow, and she would take those advanced classes with her next year.</p><p> </p><p>She’d done it in the heat of the moment, more or less, and later, after Nadine had left, she’d felt her legs go weak just a bit. Sure, she’d improved a lot in the two years since she’d come to Texas but getting herself to that level of academics would take no less than a miracle.</p><p> </p><p>Well she’d promised, hadn’t she, even gone to the point of putting it in writing, and like some of the best people in her life, she believed in keeping promises… no matter how hard they would be.</p><p> </p><p>The other big thing coming had to do with one of those people… potentially. Their school was hosting a family day, where the students were to bring anyone from parents, to siblings, to grandparents or any other relative, to attend any one class, to their discretion, and their presentation would count as extra credit to that class’ grade if they found a way to relate the presence to their presentation and the class subject where it would take place. Many planned to have this presentation take place in whatever class where they struggled most.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had known of course that she would want her mother there, and that was assured to her; Katy had taken the afternoon off for that day. But Maya wanted something else, too. Whether or not he was officially recognized as family anywhere mattered little to her: Shawn Hunter was family to her, and she wanted him there.</p><p> </p><p>She had written him, figuring it would be easier if she put it all into a letter, so she wouldn’t forget anything. She’d sent it, no worries, and she’d gotten her reply soon after. Shawn wanted to come, but he wasn’t sure yet if his schedule would permit it. He would do everything in his power to make it, but as was his great quality, he would not promise her he’d be there if he didn’t know for sure. Maya wondered if he’d replied in a letter for much the same reason why <em>she</em> had done it. Maybe he wasn’t sure he would have known what to say if put on the spot.</p><p> </p><p>Well now the day was drawing nearer and nearer, and she still didn’t know. Actually, both days were coming. Try outs were on Thursday afternoon, boys <em>and</em> girls, and Family Day was on the following day. The rest of the week, the days leading up to those had felt ridiculously short and were gone before they knew it, and Thursday was going much the same way.</p><p> </p><p>All of them were on edge. They tried not to be, but it had all come to mean so much to all of them the year before… And if all that wasn’t enough, they also had to prepare for the day after. Maya had surprised even herself, preparing for her presentation in both eventualities, one where only her mother would be there to be shown, and one where it would be both her and Shawn. She couldn’t say she didn’t have a preference, but she would do what she had to do when the time came.</p><p> </p><p>For the time being, all she had to focus on was basketball. Six of their seven had been on the middle school teams. It was their goal to see those same six transition to the high school teams by the end of this. They knew it was no guarantee, and they all made clear they understood, but of course, deep down… Maya remembered how nervous she’d been the year before, trying out to follow a friend, really, whereas now, she genuinely wanted it… She had never been so aware of her diminutive size as she was when she walked into the gym.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0254"><h2>254. Their Families in the Stands</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The boys were directed to one end of the gym, the girls to the other. Maya and Nadine quickly turned to the four boys, high fives and wishes of luck were thrown around, and then they went their separate ways. The boys, for their part, were quickly left to see how there were so many here who seemed to tower over them. Lucas spotted a few of the guys who had been in his original class before his suspension had held him back. But there were also guys from his previous team, and that was good.</p><p> </p><p>“What if we don’t all make it?” Asher asked. “What if none of us make it?” He had had some of Nadine’s hesitations in staying on, too, dividing his time between academics and sports, but he had chosen to go along with it anyway, couldn’t give it up.</p><p> </p><p>“If only some of us make it, I say we make a stand, it’s all of us or none of us,” Zay declared with a sweeping gesture.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Dylan agreed at once. “Can’t break up the team!” Zay gave his shoulder a tap with an approving nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s just try out first,” Lucas suggested.</p><p> </p><p>On the girls’ side, the two of them were having their own bit of conflict. To their great surprise, not a single member of their old team – except the one at their side – was here today. Some of them had ended up at different schools, sure, but some were here, too. And they weren’t there.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m really glad I convinced you,” Maya quietly admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“So am I. No chance I’d let you go out there on your own,” Nadine replied, and Maya smirked, looking back to her friend. “How are your nerves?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, they’ve been better,” Maya told her. “It’s like a mad house in there right now, and there’s no one on watch. How about you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Remember how my dad was right before my mom went in labor? Like that, in my head.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh boy…” Maya breathed out. “We’ll be fine once we get started. We were nervous last year, too, and look where it got us. We’re champions,” she lifted her chin with pride. And they were. The end of their short run on the middle school team had been a great one. Remembering it <em>did</em> help.</p><p> </p><p>Try outs started, on both sides. All of them did their best, knowing it wouldn’t be in their hands to make the choice, but it <em>was</em> in their hands to make damned sure they gave the coaches reasons plenty to pick them. The competition was stiff, but not <em>so</em> stiff that any of them felt they had no chance or place within the teams.</p><p> </p><p>Several times throughout the process, they would take a look to see what was happening on the other side. They weren’t the only ones to do so, which was just as well; they didn’t feel like they would be called out for it.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had looked over just in time to see Maya go up and do something that, had it taken place in the context of a game, would have made the crowd in the stands cheer loudly, him and the others included. The other girls saw it, too, as did the coach, and if it were up to him, that would clinch her getting in. It also made him realize there <em>was</em> someone in the stands who had reacted to it, and when he saw him there, Lucas smiled. Maya hadn’t even noticed him there yet, and much as he would have wanted to call her attention to it, he didn’t want to distract her from the task at hand. So, he said nothing. He had his own tryouts to think about, too.</p><p> </p><p>Maya may not have seen the man in the stands yet, but she <em>had</em> seen her friends in play. Nadine, of course, was being her usual unstoppable force on her side. On the other side, Asher was getting by, as was Zay, and then Dylan, after being sidetracked for so long, looked like he’d never missed a beat. And Lucas… She sent him some extra well wishes, in silence, when she didn’t feel she’d be singling him out over everyone else, even though she knew she was, just a bit.</p><p> </p><p>She was exhausted by the time the coach said it was over, but it was that good kind of exhausted she’d get after playing. Now she’d have to try not to stress so much over the results, which would still be days away. She turned to Nadine, who had a similar look on her face. Maya threw her arm over her shoulders, just as she heard whistling from across the gym. They both turned and she saw the whistler had been Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she shouted. He pointed to the stands, and she followed his finger to discover a lone figure sat up there, now waving back at her with a smile. Maya felt a jolt.</p><p> </p><p>“Go, go,” Nadine nodded, and Maya took off like an arrow. He was making his way down to meet her already, and they met at the bottom, where she promptly jumped into his arms. He hugged her back at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you’re sweaty,” Shawn frowned, but then smiled as she pulled back. “I’ll take this to mean you’re happy to see me?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she asked, knocking at his arm.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Ow</em>,” he gave mock hurt. “That’s what surprises are, you know? If you tell, they don’t work. By the way, you were amazing out there.”</p><p> </p><p>“Glad you saw,” Maya beamed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0255"><h2>255. Their Families in Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After getting changed again and seeing the others off, Maya returned to Shawn, who was going with her back to the house. She was still so happy to see him here, to know he had come for family day. As much as she had hoped that he would manage to come after all, she had been preparing herself to go into the next day with her mom presentation. Now he was here, and the second presentation had taken the lead, pushing the other one aside.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn Hunter had shown up. Shawn Hunter had come to stand by her side under the umbrella of family, and that just would not stop being one of the best things she’d come to experience in a while.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you smiling so big like that for?” he asked, and she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Just have to, I guess. I got through tryouts, and now you’re here, and tomorrow’s… tomorrow. My mom knows you’re here already, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I tried to surprise her, too, but she was getting a bit more… inquisitive about my coming or not, so eventually I decided I might as well tell her.” Now that he mentioned it, she could vaguely recall a turn in her mother’s mood about two days before, a great anticipation. “She came to pick me up from the airport this morning, we had lunch, then she went back to work and I wandered around the city for a while before coming here to check out these tryouts. You know, you’re really good at this,” he told her, and she chuckled, though inside she was just even happier.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she told him. She might have added ‘I really hope I get it’ but it felt like an invitation for a jinx. “While we’re on basketball, I’m pretty sure you owe me a rematch from last time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” he nodded. “We’ll have to do something about that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry, we have plenty of ice at home for that burn I’ll give you,” she innocently declared, and the face of ‘shock’ he gave was too much. Maya laughed, and the shock turned to smiles.</p><p> </p><p>“So that’s how we’re playing it, huh?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, it is,” she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, can we hold off on the burning until after tomorrow? Wouldn’t want me to go in there like I’d been beaten on that court… again.” He would insist he never let her win, and she’d sort of believe it, on the sole count that he looked so baffled and a tiny bit frustrated whenever it happened. “So, how’s this thing going to work tomorrow?” he asked as they got on the bus.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, tomorrow afternoon, in art class, I’ll show a drawing I did of the three of us, and I’ll talk about portraits, and also about the meaning behind it.” It was sort of the most nerve-wracking thing she could be asked to do, laying out her feelings like that, in front of her classmates, and her teacher, and most of all her mother and Shawn. Some things they knew, but some might not have been put into so many words before.</p><p> </p><p>“So, will I blush? Will I cry?” he asked. She laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“My mom will probably cry.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll bring tissues then,” he nodded, then, “I know I’ve said it before, Maya, but it really means a lot to me that you asked me to come in for this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you are family, and it’s family day,” she shrugged and smiled, and he gave her a side hug. “You’re gonna cry, Hunter.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he pointed his finger at her, “Hey. I’m not gonna cry.” She gave him a look that showed just how little she believed this statement. “I’m not a… crier.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do I need to remind you about the whole thing with the movie last time?” she gave him a look, and he turned to her like she’d just shouted a deep dark secret. “Anyway… It’ll be for a good reason,” she brought it back, and he agreed with a nod. “How was your flight?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you know, nothing much. I slept through most of it, nothing short of a feat with the noise from the seat behind me.” She asked if it was a baby, and he told her yes. “A forty-something-year-old one.” She laughed, and he treated her to a handful of imitations that had her laughing on, through the rest of the ride and until they got off the bus.</p><p> </p><p>“Good thing my mom was there when you got here then, right?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s true… That’s so true, and not just today.”</p><p> </p><p>They would get to the house soon, where Katy would already be there waiting. Maya would tell her all about the tryouts, with Shawn there to jump in with the POV from the stands. Maya was happy to learn he’d be here a week, so he would still be in town once the team lists went up. No matter the results, he would be there to react in consequence, and that was as she’d want it to be.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0256"><h2>256. Their Families in Kinship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Friday morning arrived, and with it came Family Day at the high school. Maya had been ready for it for a while, even more so since the day before, but as for her people, her family… She could only speak to Shawn’s state when they’d parted ways the evening before, but he and Katy had been on fairly equal ground. If he kept going that way, then he’d be a nervous wreck by presentation time just like her mother was bound to be. Maybe he’d have his own reasons, of course. He wasn’t an actor like her mother had been. She seemed to be looking at Maya’s presentation that day like it was a performance on a stage.</p><p> </p><p>Maya left her to head to school, on the promise that she’d be there, with Shawn, before art class. She made her way to the Matthews house to pick up Riley and found her waiting outside.</p><p> </p><p>“You, too, uh?” she asked with a smirk. Frazzled Riley was such a sight…</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not like no one knows he’s my dad. He’s at school every day,” Riley sighed as they walked off together. “And I wanted to have my presentation in another class than history, but nothing really fit. So, it’ll be him and Mom in there. He’s all excited that she’ll get to watch him teach. I think he wants Uncle Shawn to see that, too…” she frowned, and Maya chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>As they reached the school, they went and sat on the bench, where they sat every morning, except on those rarest of days where anyone outside their group arrived before they did and the bench was already occupied. Before long, others began to come and join them, Nadine, Zay, Rebecca… Next came Dylan, along with the Garcia twins and their parents, and finally Lucas came with his mother and father as well.</p><p> </p><p>Mrs. Friar had dressed for the occasion, though it seemed to her the occasion was some fancy gala, going by her outfit and hair and look as a whole. Her husband wore what Maya had heard called his best suit, and he looked like he might as well have been wearing rags, as he stood next to her. It even looked like Lucas had been made to ‘up his game,’ going by how he looked that morning, something reminiscent of the post-grounding gag they’d all pulled.</p><p> </p><p>Maya tried so, so hard to keep from laughing. Lucas saw it, and she swore that only knocked off his uneasy expression to replace it with an attempt to get her to break. He came to sit on the back of the bench, feet on the empty space next to her where she sat, as he so often did, creating the effect as though they still sat on the steps in front of their old middle school. She turned to look at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you pick English so you could get this over with?” she asked in a whisper.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, get down from there,” his mother spoke, turning from her conversation with Mrs. Garcia. He sighed and slipped off, sitting properly, next to Maya, bumping her shoulder as he went. He apologized, but she only smiled, playing off the chills she’d gotten so inexplicably. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t sat this close before. Maybe it was all these parents standing around.</p><p> </p><p>“Too bad I won’t get to see your presentation,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>“Well here,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him. “You can read what I wrote.” He unfolded the paper and got to reading. As he did, she couldn’t just sit there and watch him, so she listened as the others spoke of their own upcoming presentations.</p><p> </p><p>Zay’s parents would attend his creative writing class. Nadine’s – along with the baby – would sit in on her biology class. Dylan’s would be in gym at the end of the day, Rebecca’s in French, and of course Riley’s in History. They were all nervous in their own rights, some of them for what their parents might say or do, others for their own ability to present. Soon they got to wondering where some of their classmates’ parents would pop in.</p><p> </p><p>When Lucas finished reading the sheet, he folded it back up and handed it to Maya, who looked at him expectantly.</p><p> </p><p>“I remember that drawing, you were working on it a few weeks ago at the diner, weren’t you?” he asked, and she nodded, sort of amazed he had not only remembered it but also pieced it together from what she’d written. “They both mean so much to you,” he smiled, nodding to the paper. “Now I wish I could see the presentation even more.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I’ll film it, then you can see later,” Riley piped in, and Maya startled; she’d almost forgotten for a second there that she was sitting on the other side of her. She turned and found her beaming like she’d pulled off some great trick. Maya didn’t know what to say.</p><p> </p><p>“That’d be great, thanks,” Lucas told her.</p><p> </p><p>“What are friends for?” Riley shrugged innocently. Maya still didn’t know how to respond to that. So, she turned back to Lucas with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, for now I get to see <em>your</em> presentation, can’t wait for that,” she tipped her head to his overdressed parents, and Lucas tried not to laugh.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0257"><h2>257. Their Families in Nerves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had seemed only right – in Melinda Friar’s mind if in no one else’s in particular – to close out Family Day at the kids’ school by inviting her son’s friends and their families to dinner at their house. So, after the day had ended, that was where they were bound, for a Friar-Babineaux-Garcia-Orlando-Zhu-Hart-Matthews-Fitz extravaganza.</p><p> </p><p>Maya couldn’t help but look at Shawn, in the middle of all this. She wondered if he had been brought up to a new level of confidence after today, the presentation she’d made… Seeing him hanging around the cluster of dads, she couldn’t say for sure what was going through his head, but he wasn’t freaking out, so that was good…</p><p> </p><p>She saw him talking with Mr. Friar, and a part of her just went back to that private place it had built up. Lucas’ father, talking to her… Shawn… What was that going to look like?</p><p> </p><p>“It was a pretty good day, wasn’t it?” Riley asked, and Maya sort of jumped, never having seen her come up. “All our presentations went well…”</p><p> </p><p>“You did see my dad, right?” Asher frowned, coming up to join them. “I had to give him a pep talk before and he spoke like a robot for what little he said.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, he was sweet,” Nadine joined in, followed by Zay. The gag among them tended to go that, left to a single room together, they would start gravitating to each other, faster and faster as more of them came.</p><p> </p><p>“At least your dad didn’t go distributing cookies like my mom did,” Zay told them. “I thought GiGi made those for us,” he frowned, just as Dylan came up, munching on one of those. “Where did you even…”</p><p> </p><p>“I asked,” Dylan shrugged. The cult of GiGi’s cookies was strong with those two. “Should have seen <em>my</em> dad before he went in, I thought he was gonna be sick or something.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I</em> was afraid mine would never shut up,” Rebecca said as she and Joey came along.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we know who won the day, in her mind at least,” Maya spoke without turning; she knew he’d come and joined them now. “Big day for her, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“The biggest,” Lucas still sounded vaguely embarrassed at the morning’s showing by his mother. Maya looked at him, gave him something akin to a ‘buck up, soldier’ bump at the chin, smirking. “I never got to ask, how did yours go?” he asked her, embarrassment turned to a smile now.</p><p> </p><p>“It was so good,” Riley replied before Maya could. “She made like five people cry,” she reported.</p><p> </p><p>“Who?” Zay asked, chuckling. Nadine shyly raised her hand, and Zay put his arm around her. “For real?”</p><p> </p><p>“What, it was really just beautiful, I guess. Riley cried, too,” Nadine pointed out. “And our teacher, and then her mom, and Shawn…” They’d tried so hard not to, both of them, which had more or less made it more obvious. Maya could easily have been the sixth crier, but she’d held on. Lucas was still looking at her like he wanted to hear it from her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m really glad today happened. I was always scared something like this would just be a mess for me, but it wasn’t. Nothing bad happened at all, and I actually… never thought it would, not today. I was excited when the time came… I wanted to share my family…”</p><p> </p><p>Looking around, it was never easier to see how the word could reshape itself with ease. Family had come to mean much more to her, all through her life, than the people she shared blood with. These boys and girls standing around her, they were her family, too. All these mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters spread out through the Friar house that night, she knew them, cared about them, as she knew she was cared for <em>by</em> them. They had built up this little world, all of them, through bonds of friendship, turned to family.</p><p> </p><p>The dinner was the kind of thing that could easily have ended in chaos if left in a less expert hand. But they had to hand it to Lucas’ mother, who had gone and fed nearly thirty people like it was any old night when it clearly couldn’t have been.</p><p> </p><p>All the parents were speaking of the day, for their own experiences as much as their getting to stand up there with their sons or daughters. Some laughs were shared, and more smiles than not… There could not have been a better cap for this day.</p><p> </p><p>Maya, once her mother had told her it was time to go, had gone and said goodbye to her friends. All of them had already decided they would spend most of the weekend together, because how else would they deal with the wait for the results of the previous day’s tryouts? They were to meet in the morning to figure out what use they would make of these days. With her promise to Nadine, Maya couldn’t help but think hers might be better off being spent deep in study.</p><p> </p><p>For now, she followed her mother and Shawn as they headed back to her house. It was a cool autumn day and they’d decided to walk. Maybe it was the artistic pull they all felt in their respective fields, but it felt like something to see…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0258"><h2>258. Their Families in Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Walking along in silence for a while, Maya could just see her mother and Shawn at her side, hand in hand, and the image she could see in her head just felt as though it reflected everything this day had been about, at school, at the dinner… It was family… It was so simple a concept, walking as a family, but it was so much more to her, not simple at all. It took her back to everything she’d said in her presentation.</p><p> </p><p>The piece she had presented was one she hadn’t shown to her mother and Shawn before. It wasn’t that she’d set out to keep it from them, it just happened that, when family day was first announced and she’d decided on what she meant to do, she had this portrait she knew she could use, that was unknown to them, and she knew what she wanted to do. They would see it only when she unveiled it to the class, at the end of her presentation. How many times had she had one or the other of those two try to sneak a peek over time? It had made it so she didn’t feel how potentially nervous she could get until the day had started, and she’d seen some of those other presentations. But then she’d gotten to art class and found them waiting there, staring at a drawing on the wall, one of hers, the first to be hung up in that class. She saw them, and she stopped being nervous. Class started, and soon it was her time to get up there with her people and her covered piece.</p><p> </p><p>“This is my mother,” she had started, looking back to the woman stood just over her shoulder. “Katy Hart, the best person I’ve ever known, and I didn’t even know it for… a long while.” Her mother had given the slightest twitch that might as well have said ‘Damn, here I go already,’ a tingle of tears trying to escape her as she looked back at her. Maya had just smiled. “What I did know was that she was my family, only one I had since my father left.” The memory of the summer’s encounter could still knock her, but she had gone on. She could see some of her classmates now looking at Shawn, no doubt wondering. She wasn’t in the habit of just talking about her home life outside her circle of friends, and they must have thought Shawn <em>was</em> her father, the one she’d had all her life.</p><p> </p><p>“This is Shawn Hunter. He’s been in our lives for… almost two years now,” she said, hardly able to believe it had been so long already. “He’s been a lot of things, to me, to my mother. To me… he was like a myth. Riley’s ‘Uncle Shawn,’ Mr. Matthews’ childhood friend. Then he was someone I could talk to, tell all the things I didn’t think I could tell anyone else, because he knew… He was like me,” she looked at him now. He made her a face and she returned it, which made him laugh as she smiled and turned back to the class. “He got to be a friend, even if he lives so, so far away. And then he grew into… Well, he became my mother’s boyfriend… finally,” she spoke pointedly, soon hearing Shawn’s low ‘hey…’.</p><p> </p><p>“Even before that though, there was something else he was becoming. Neither of us could say the word for it, but we knew what it was, as much as the reason why we wouldn’t say it. Words are promises, and those can be dangerous. Well, word or not, he was family now, him, Mom, me…” He was trying to keep a steady face, and she could see it out of the corner of her eye even before she turned to approach the covered drawing. “I think all three of us needs the other two as much as the others do, for all our own reasons, our histories… And when it’s the three of us, it just works.”</p><p> </p><p>That was sort of what the drawing showed, the three of them just sort of encircling one another, becoming a whole. She’d stood back, letting them see, and she only had to take one look at them to know they were goners, the pair of them.</p><p> </p><p>How they’d somehow gotten through the rest of it, which involved introducing Shawn’s artistic perspective as a photographer, and her mother’s, in the theater, was a wonder, but they had done it. When the class had been over, her mother had hugged her like she’d been meaning to do it since the presentation. And then Shawn had done the same, admitting his previous ‘defeat,’ which had her smirking.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you did your best,” she’d told him, “You gonna be okay there?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, sure, yeah, just… just give me a minute, yeah?” She’d stopped herself pointing out he’d had a good half hour already.</p><p> </p><p>Now as they walked along together, Maya wondered how much further they would have to get before either of them <em>did</em> feel able to say <em>that word</em>. It almost seemed like they were there now, but they weren’t really, were they? Who even got to say? And if they tried to make things happen too fast… Well that was the story of her life, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Family Day being over now, her mind would go back to the other thing, wouldn’t it? Basketball tryouts, the team lists… A weekend to get through before all that… It was going to be impossible, wouldn’t it? No, she’d have her friends, her family… It would be okay.</p><p> </p><p>They reached the house, and their walk came to an end. That night was the first one Shawn spent there at the house with them instead of going to Cory’s or to a hotel, and Maya was completely okay with it. As far as she was concerned, he belonged here. And in the morning, they could all have breakfast together… She’d had dreams about that, she was almost sure of it. Her family and her, sat around a table in their pyjamas, morning sunlight on them…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0259"><h2>259. Their Families in Support</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The weekend had been a mix of being with her friends, and with her family, and having fun together, and then the rest of the time had been constant agony, questioning her skills, telling herself there was just no way ever she would make the basketball team. Her mother would ‘talk her off the ledge’ at every turn with a smirk on her face that told Maya exactly what they should <em>both</em> have been thinking about the matter: she was being ridiculous. She would end up agreeing, sure, but sooner or later she’d tumble right back into that mindset.</p><p> </p><p>Then, finally, Monday morning had come around, and she was up and ready much too early to just go and pick up Riley, so she had gone and sat on the steps in front of her house to wait out the time. She’d been out there near on fifteen minutes, looking at the sky, looking at the people around <em>her</em> house, coming out of theirs to go to work… when she saw one person coming up the street. He was too far at first for her to recognize his face, but she hadn’t needed to; she’d recognized his walk. She’d picked up her bag at once and dashed off to go meet him.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing out here so early?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I figured you’d be out there already, being nervous, so I just…” Lucas shrugged. She smiled. Of course, he would… of course. “You okay?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I haven’t tried to flee the state or anything, so there’s that. I do feel like I could run a marathon though, so <em>that’s</em> weird…”</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s just walk instead,” he suggested with a nod, so that was what they did, walking to Riley’s instead of taking the bus, which made it so that, by the time they got there, it was Maya’s regular arrival time to pick her up. Riley had expected her to arrive extra early, as she revealed, only to understand why she hadn’t once she saw Lucas there with her.</p><p> </p><p>They made it to school, to the bench, where they waited for the others. The whole time, Riley had the two of them talking about this thing and that, Maya suspected, to keep them both from thinking about the lists. She had taken very seriously her position as the non-player among their seven.</p><p> </p><p>That job went on as the others started to arrive, one ball of nerves after another, even Dylan, though you had to know him to see it, which they did. He would have much the same face, but he would hardly talk. Asher would pace about, and Zay wouldn’t stop talking. Maya had pulled Nadine to sit with her, her teammate of the year before and, she hoped, teammate of this year as well. If Nadine didn’t make it, then what chance did <em>she</em> even have?</p><p> </p><p>They had all agreed that none of them would go into the school, none of them would go and see if the lists were there, until they were all there and well now they were… and they <em>could</em> go…</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, let’s just do it,” Maya stood from the bench decisively, pulling Nadine along, the others falling in step with this decision as the girls moved toward the doors.</p><p> </p><p>The walk through the halls to the gym felt much longer than it had any right to. But then they turned the corner, and out there they could see it: the lists were there, stuck to the board. The group came to a stop, so sudden in front that they were almost knocked off their feet.</p><p> </p><p>“What do we do?” Zay asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Riley, go look,” Maya turned to her friend, who quickly went bug-eyed and shook her head. “Please?” Riley sighed, but she moved forward, advancing away from the nervous six now trying to play it cool as they stood in the middle of the hall like they hadn’t just sent someone to look for them because they were scared.</p><p> </p><p>It came down to listening for the squeaks. Riley’s index finger would move down the column of names on one list and then the other, and each name she found that belonged to one of her friends was accompanied by a squeak.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at the boys’ list, and there was one squeak… and another… and a third… and a fourth. She turned around with that smile of hers, while the four boys felt all the stress leave them, followed by great joy, though they tried very hard to keep it together until they knew the fate of the girls. Maya gave a nod to Riley, who turned back to the lists with a deep breath and a nod. Maya reached for Nadine’s hand as the other girl did the same. Riley’s finger began its trail along the page, and then she squeaked… and squeaked again. And then she ran back to her friends, who had now lost all semblance of being calm and collected to instead turn to great cheer and celebration. They’d made it… they’d all made it!</p><p> </p><p>Now they actually went up to the lists and saw for themselves, and it was even better, seeing their names right there in ink. They had made the teams.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the day felt like a dream. They had to get through it before they could go and share the news with their families, and before that, every free moment they had was spent talking about what they’d found out that morning. They would spot their new teammates and share in that happiness with them. They were already making plans for each team to gather later in the week.</p><p> </p><p>When finally, <em>finally</em> the day ended, Maya had been off in a flash; she needed to get home, she needed to tell them. She sat on the bus like she could probably have made it home faster on her own. She all but tore down the street before putting herself together so that, when she walked through that door, it could have been any other day. Shawn was sitting on the couch, reading a book.</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s Mom?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“She went on an errand, she’ll be back soon,” he got up. “So?” he asked, looking like he’d been waiting on the news all day, too. She was surprised Mr. Matthews had managed <em>not</em> to tell him already, as of course he’d known.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait until she gets home,” she insisted, pointing a finger at him. When he smiled, she blinked. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well here I thought you had a better poker face than that, you’re just beaming right now… You made the team, didn’t you?” She frowned, trying to hold it in, but she knew it was no use, so she just nodded. In the next moment, she was off the ground, as he held her and shouted, and so she laughed and hugged him back. “What did I tell you, huh? What did I tell you?” He set her down.</p><p> </p><p>“That I had nothing to worry about,” she recited.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s right,” he nodded. “But hey, it’s good not to just assume either, so alright.” He breathed out. “Real proud of you, Maya. You already knew that, yeah?” She nodded, still unable to stop smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“Always good to hear it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, well when your mom gets here, we’ll just pretend you haven’t told me yet, deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not gonna happen. <em>Your</em> poker face is worse than mine, <em>you’re</em> still grinning,” she pointed at his face accusingly.</p><p> </p><p>When Katy returned home however, both Maya and Shawn learned what her errand had been: a celebration cake. The news had reached Riley’s mom, and then… It became less of a thing that Maya had already told Shawn, because Katy had already known.</p><p> </p><p>The when or how stopped mattering after that, and Maya’s mother had congratulated her at once, squeezing her good. She already couldn’t wait to resume her post as ‘loud and proud’ Mom in the stands, while Shawn promised he’d come down again to see her play, maybe not the first game, but he would be there eventually, cheering right alongside Katy.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0260"><h2>260. Their Spooking of the House</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>October was halfway gone already, and as hard as they expected things to get, now balancing high school workloads, basketball practice, part-time jobs for some, chores for others, extra credit… promises made to teammates to even get them to tryout… There <em>were</em> some difficulties, but for whatever came at them, they came to see that some things didn’t change: so long as they had each other, no challenge was so bad in the end. They had developed a sort of rhythm, helping one another where help was needed. And it was working.</p><p> </p><p>It was two weeks to Halloween when they were handed a very special project. Mr. Matthews brought Auggie into class one day to help present it. The younger Matthews’ school would be hosting a haunted house on Halloween night, and they were looking for volunteers from the high school to help prepare, decorate, and staff it.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had been the first to raise her hand, almost out of obligation to her brother, but then Maya had raised her hand almost just as quick, for no reason other than that it sounded like great fun. With two hands up, the dominos got to tumbling, getting to seven, then nine with Joey and Rebecca. A few more students raised their hands outside the square of friends. Auggie stepped up with a clipboard holding a list. There were already names, showing they were not the first to get the pitch. He diligently carried the clipboard from desk to desk, watching each student fill in their name and number. When he deposited the clipboard on Maya’s desk, he watched her so attentively that she had to look back at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey… Aug… How’s it going?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll make it spooky, and scary, right?” he asked her. When she promised him that she would, he turned to his father. “I want her to be in charge,” he declared, much to his sister’s surprise. Why hadn’t he picked <em>her</em>?</p><p> </p><p>“I can be scary,” Riley insisted. Auggie had looked at her, then back to Maya. “Okay, fair enough,” Riley had relented.</p><p> </p><p>And that had settled it. Whether or not Auggie’s word would carry and actually make Maya be in charge was left to be seen, but even if she weren’t in charge, she would be just as happy to do her part. She was ready for Halloween, always, and now this… She was already getting ideas.</p><p> </p><p>By the time the day ended, her small sketchbook had been treated to several quick sketches, showing samplings of just why Auggie Matthews would want her to have the lead. Some among their group looked downright squeamish just looking at the drawings. Then there were others, like Lucas, and Dylan, and Nadine, who just wanted more. They’d ended up at the Orlando house, where a demonstration of zombie walks began, turning into a zombie off. They knew they were on the right track when the two little kids from across the street, who had been quietly looking on, finally turned and ran off screaming.</p><p> </p><p>“And that was <em>without</em> costumes,” Lucas pointed out. “You doing the makeup?” he asked Maya. “Like when we did the live art?”</p><p> </p><p>“Probably,” she shrugged. They didn’t know their actual tasks just yet. She really hoped she did get to do it.</p><p> </p><p>Already it would be her third Halloween in Texas, and she was beginning to learn who among her friends were likely to get hyped on this haunted house thing the way she did. Dylan had been an easy tell, as was Nadine, and then, well… Lucas… He might have been least expected but also most motivated. She wouldn’t say it aloud, but she could swear she had never seen so much of his mother in him as she did in these moments. Halloween might have been his favorite holiday, and that was something she was finding out. It made her happy.</p><p> </p><p>They would find out soon enough what their tasks would be as they went forward. They couldn’t wait, as much as it would further dig into their time. They’d be spending <em>this</em> time together, working on something that would give kids a memorable Halloween… What else could they really want?</p><p> </p><p>As it turned out, Auggie’s word did carry some weight. Maya wasn’t in charge of ‘everything,’ but she would be in charge of the volunteers from her year, assigning them tasks within their assigned position, which was mostly as ‘performers,’ though they would also be on hand to help decorating, under the supervision of the head student for the 11<sup>th</sup> graders… Zay’s cousin Alicia. And, yes, Maya <em>would</em> be helping in the making up of their performers. She would turn them into scary creatures. Once she’d known, she immediately wanted to look up how to do it.</p><p> </p><p>“I saw these videos once, I can send them to you,” Lucas had offered, and she’d smiled in thanks.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I use you to test things out?” she asked him, and it almost went without saying that he would gladly do it. She might have used Riley, but she could only imagine what it would be like to be testing things out on her, and she would have much rather known what she was doing before she did anything on her. Whether she’d asked Lucas because it meant she’d get to be near him was absolutely beside the point…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0261"><h2>261. Their Spooking of the Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning of October 31<sup>st</sup> came around sooner than they could have anticipated. The last two weeks had just been so busy, with preparations, rehearsals… There were close to fifty volunteers from throughout the high school, a quarter of those under the leadership of one Maya Hart, and what a leader she was. No one could – or would dare to – question that, as she soon produced the vision Auggie Matthews had singled her out for. Two weeks into this, she was almost sure Zay was now legitimately scared of her. Not that she’d abuse this fact… much.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had seamlessly slipped into the role of second in command. Whatever new task they would all take on, he would be there, knowing just what she was attempting to do without her having to even finish explaining it to him and the others. There were a number of times where things might have fallen apart if he hadn’t been there by her side.</p><p> </p><p>And for the last week or so, his coming to pick her up in the morning, as he’d done on the morning of tryouts, had become a daily thing. They would discuss whatever they had done the day before and what they would do that day for the Haunted House. To Maya, it brought back memories of those mornings where he’d have sessions with the counselor and he’d come and sit with her on the steps outside school afterward, and they’d talk, waiting for the others to arrive. They would talk here as they walked to go and pick up Riley and head to school. Just like those old mornings, these were becoming some of her favorites. Her mother would point out how prompt she’d been all those mornings, ready and out the door like clockwork. Then she’d chuckle and walk off, leaving Maya to frown at her and shrug as she’d head off to sit outside, knowing Lucas wouldn’t be long to show up.</p><p> </p><p>As busy as the Haunted House could keep them, they would still have basketball practice, though even there they would have the house on the brain. The guys had relayed the story of how the coach had called Dylan out for absently toning his zombie stance as he’d stand out on the court. He had the best one, so of course that had been his officially designated role for the night at the house. The coach didn’t much care for this, of course, and he’d wanted to make Dylan run laps. He might have done it if Lucas hadn’t talked him out of it.</p><p> </p><p>Then there was Maya, who always seemed to get loads of ideas while standing out there. This time had been no exception. Whenever practice would end, she’d go and dash to dig her notebook from her bag and quickly scribble whatever thought had come to her, which she’d been repeating in her mind over and over so not to forget.</p><p> </p><p>Volunteers had been excused out of gym class and study hall for these two weeks, so for that last period they would be out at the house, working away, though it did mean running back to <em>their</em> school on the afternoons they had practice. There was no skipping those.</p><p> </p><p>As crazy as it was, all the running back and forth, they <em>were</em> having fun, and maybe more importantly, they <em>were</em> making progress, day by day, especially on the two weekends preceding. This last one had been the most frenzied, their last two days before The Big Day. They had done everything they could possibly do in advance, leaving only the final steps for that afternoon, where classes had been exempted for them from lunch on down.</p><p> </p><p>“English will be easy enough to get through, I guess,” Maya told Lucas as they walked to Riley’s that morning. “Biology, maybe, depending on if we get something gross. Algebra… that’ll be the snail’s pace,” she groaned. She’d been working very hard there, and she <em>had</em> been improving, but it still gave her a headache. “At least you have wood working, you’ll get to make stuff. Why didn’t I take that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because you wanted art class,” he pointed out, and she breathed out. “You’d still have algebra, too. But <em>then</em>, you know… <em>un petit peu de français, mademoiselle Hart…</em>” She snorted at the face he made – always – when speaking French.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Oui, et ensuite la maison hantée,</em>” she replied. They’d learned how to say haunted house very early on in those two weeks, with how it occupied their days lately.</p><p> </p><p>“See?” Lucas had smiled. “Morning won’t be so bad, it’ll be over in no time, and then it’ll be…” he transitioned into his own zombie walk, which could only make her do the same, even though she would be a vampire that night, while he’d be made to act as a ghost, which could at times make him come off sort of zombie like.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, I know,” she finally said, still laughing. “I’m just excited, aren’t you?” she asked, tapping away at his arm with both hands.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah,” he promised. “Tell you what though, I think my mother will be glad when this is over. She made me swear I’d stop with the zombie walks through the house; it keeps freaking her out.”</p><p> </p><p>“We wouldn’t want that,” Maya nodded with a smirk. “What about your dad, what does he think?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well… apparently he thinks it’s cute when she gets startled, so he doesn’t mind, and that might have been more than I needed to know.” Maya sympathized with a tap to the shoulder as they reached the Matthews house and were greeted by Auggie the werewolf.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0262"><h2>262. Their Spooking of the Rooms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had been right in promising the morning would go fast enough. Algebra hadn’t even happened, technically. Their teacher was out, and they had a substitute who let them do homework through the period. There was rumor, heard from older siblings, that their teacher never worked on Halloween, instead choosing to stay home and away from costumes and madness. So then all they had was French, followed by a quick lunch, and then they were off to the haunted house for the final set up.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had sent her classmates to their assigned tasks before moving to the one room she planned to set up by herself. It was fortunate that Lucas came looking for her when he did, or she might have dropped a whole box of little glass jars of fake blood, and then they could have had a lot of <em>real</em> blood mixed up in there. But he’d come along and helped to steady the box along with her.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she breathed. She had underestimated the weight of the box, clearly. “How’s it going out there?”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” he nodded. “I can help you in here if you want.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, look,” she pointed to the floor plan she’d made, along with the sketches, to show where it would all go.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” he nodded again and got to work. They would have been ready in time for the start time even if she’d done it all on her own, but this way they’d finish quicker and have extra time to get themselves ready.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you ever wish it was Halloween more often?” she asked him, and he turned to look at her. “I mean sure, there’s things all through the month and all, but it’s not like <em>actual</em> Halloween, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, kinda,” he told her. “But it wouldn’t be as special then,” he went on, and she sighed; he had a point. “<em>But</em>,” he started again, not wanting her to get bummed out, “It’s Halloween now.” That brought her smile back, much to his relief.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “In that case…” she looked down to the bowl she held, filled with candy brain goop, grabbed a bit of it, and reached out to place it on top of his head. Lucas didn’t flinch, only watched her with curiosity. When the candy was on his head, he scrunched up his face; she only beamed. “Happy Halloween, Huckleberry,” she told him.</p><p> </p><p>“And to you,” he tipped his head, letting the candy fly back at her, making her jump back with a squeak, followed by a laugh. The fallen candy was retrieved and tossed away, and the flare of disappointment gone with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, can’t waste too much of this, or, you know, time and all. You’re supposed to help me, which is really hard when tossing fake brains sounds like so much fun…”</p><p> </p><p>“What if whatever’s left when this is all over…” he offered, much as he realized at the same moment that he was signing himself up for goop on the head. The thing though was that, as soon as he saw the way she smiled, he forgot all form of complaint. It would wash off anyway, right? “It won’t be any worse than last Thursday with the paint,” he pointed out, and the memory made her laugh again.</p><p> </p><p>“Poor Jenna, she still has a green tinge all here,” she gestured to her face. “Just looks like she’s going to be sick half the time. <em>I</em> told her she should really lean into it and go as the witch from the Wizard of Oz.” Now <em>he</em> laughed. “She didn’t find it funny, unfortunately.”</p><p> </p><p>The room’s set up progressed along nicely as they talked and worked. When it was done, they stepped back to take in the whole image. It really looked like the drawings, which made it even better. With the effect of the lights, it was as spooky as they’d been allowed to make it, minding their audience.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, would you look at that,” Maya turned to him, showing her bowl, where a solid handful of ‘brains’ remained. “So, about this…” she asked innocently. He gave no warning, and he ran away. Maya was quickly on the chase, shouting that he was about to ‘get brained’ as she weaved past others like she was out on the court and so was he.</p><p> </p><p>The leftover ‘brains’ found their way to their mark sooner or later, much to Maya’s delight. Lucas would say that he had let her catch him, while she would insist that she’d caught him fair and square. The debate would carry on all through the final preparations, revived every time someone pointed out the bits of goop still dripping from his head.</p><p> </p><p>The house was as ready as it would get. Now all that was left was for the performers to get changed, get their hair and makeup done and get into position before the kids started to arrive.</p><p> </p><p>“See, I’m gonna miss this,” Maya told him as they went to find their costumes. “These last two weeks, working with everyone, talking in the morning,” she counted off with a sigh.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I… I could still come and get you in the morning, if you wanted me to…” he offered carefully. He’d been imagining he’d be losing his reasons to come get her, too. He would have missed their talks as much as her. She asked if he’d mind getting up that early all the time. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0263"><h2>263. Their Spooking of the Faces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The final results on the hair, makeup, and costumes for the performers was not quite what they had started out with. They had been made to dial back on the level of scariness, not wanting to frighten the kids so much that they’d have nightmares for weeks. Even so, they came out on the other side with something that would still thrill them and chill them and make for a memorable haunted house.</p><p> </p><p>All nine of the group were now in the process of changing into their costumes before moving to hair and makeup. Maya’s mother had come through for her by getting the people from that department of the theater involved in the process. They had really helped Maya as well on this level, showing her new tricks of the trade.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, look out now, here comes Riley the vampire,” Nadine smirked, and the others turned to see as she came along, locked into character and all set to go. She had that deep grandiose stare thing down.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello, children, don’t you look all flush with life…” Riley intoned dramatically. She came up to Zay, who was sitting to be ‘ghostified’ in Maya’s chair. “Young Isaiah here looks just… delicious…”</p><p> </p><p>“I had a lot of garlic at lunch, yep, a lot of garlic,” he awkwardly declared, and Riley hissed and ran off, making everyone else – except awkward Zay – burst out laughing.</p><p> </p><p>“Aww, what did the scary vampire do to you?” Nadine went up to her boyfriend and put her arms around him.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I don’t even mind the condescending right now,” Zay couldn’t help but smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys, check me out!” Dylan stood up, having been made up by one of the theater women. He, of course, had wanted to be a zombie, and that was exactly what he got to be. Now with his whole look locked in, and his pose adopted, he was ready to scare loads of kids… big <em>and</em> small. Zay had immediately grasped Nadine’s arm still around him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not going to make it through this day.”</p><p> </p><p>“And that’s why we made you a greeter,” Asher chuckled, “So you’ll be <em>outside </em>the house.”</p><p> </p><p>“Won’t be anywhere if I don’t finish with him,” Maya frowned, tipping her head for Nadine to step back and let her get back to work.</p><p> </p><p>Once he was done, she’d only have Lucas left to take care of, then she’d get herself made up, and then all of them would get into position and the house could open.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Ghost of Huckleberry, you’re up,” she called out once Zay was done and left the chair. He came up and took his place. “So how did your guy die again?”</p><p> </p><p>“Freak accident; he lost his head,” Lucas smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“So unfortunate, it’s such a nice head,” she laughed, then stilled into a smile that felt warm on her cheeks when she saw how her words had made <em>him</em> smile. “Okay, chin up, keep your neck relaxed.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll do my best,” he looked up, feeling himself gulp just a second. There was no chance either of them was forgetting previous moments of their being in this exact position. It seemed every new instance of it made them more nervous, but not in a half bad way. She would be so gentle in how she worked, and he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to, with her being so near.</p><p> </p><p>“There, one fake cut,” she told him once she’d drawn it up, all the way around his neck. His head actually looked as though it might have been rested atop the rest of his body without being attached to it. “Do the thing, the pretending like it’s about to fall off,” she asked him, and he stood, doing as told.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s that?” he asked. She clapped.</p><p> </p><p>“Now sit back down so I can get you a bit more… pale and bloody, and then I can get my fangs on,” she gave him a flash of vampire eyes. His decapitated head trembled as he sat.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, okay, sounds good,” he told her, and she smiled before getting back to work.</p><p> </p><p>Once he was done, she sat in the theater woman’s chair. Her kids would be attending the haunted house, and as she turned Maya into a vampire, she told her how much it meant to her to have been involved in some part.</p><p> </p><p>When Maya was ready, she rejoined her friends, making sure they ended up where they were meant to go. Zay happily went to take up his greeter position. Ghosts went one way, vampires here, zombies there, witches and warlocks… The haunted house was about to open.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas only wished he could have ended up in the same area of the house that Maya did. He couldn’t help it anymore, could he? He only wanted to be near her, especially after the last couple of weeks. Keeping his word would never stop being important, but it would also get more difficult.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0264"><h2>264. Their Spooking of the Hour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya and Riley, the vampire twins, were to act as guides through the house. They would wait just inside the door ready, to welcome their next cluster of ‘unsuspecting victims’ as directed to them by one of the greeters. Part of their first group was awfully familiar to them, as it included Auggie Matthews, and Marley and Michaela Zhu, and Hildy’s little Sara, as stern as ever. She could have easily been taken on as one of their performers. Topanga and Hildy had accompanied them up, but they would stay back and leave the kids in their care.</p><p> </p><p>“Good evening, little ones,’ Maya the vampire greeted them, in her deep voice. Her original suggestion of ‘good evening, blood bags,’ as a joke, had not made the cut, but going by the look on Marley Zhu’s face, the alternative did fine in just selling the character.</p><p> </p><p>“Welcome to our house, enter at your own risk,” Riley carried on in the same tone as earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“Riley, you look great,” Auggie told his sister, who met this with a strengthening of resolve. She <em>had</em> to stay in character.</p><p> </p><p>“You must confuse me with some other creature, little boy. My name is Narcissa, the Blood Hungry,” she declared with a flourish, before tossing her brother a warning look. “I wouldn’t want to show you what this means. This is my dear friend, of some centuries, Serafina, the Crimson Menace,” she indicated Maya with another flourish, as she stepped forward and fixed the children with her stare.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like to begin?” she asked them. The Zhu sisters didn’t look entirely certain they did want to go anywhere nearer to that place, but Auggie and Sara were both nodding with confidence. “Stay close to us now,” Maya crouched next to Nadine’s sisters. For their sake at least, she’d let them realize it was her under the makeup, giving them a wink. They smiled now. “Hold on to Narcissa and I if you need to. Come along.”</p><p> </p><p>And off they went, up the stairs and into the house. It felt good to see it actually put to use, to see the kids experience it. They could hardly be scared by it when they had been the ones to create it. But then they could see other little groups head inside, escorted by other students in disguise, and they saw the wonder in their eyes, saw how close some of them stayed to one another, already frightened by their surroundings. It was all as it should be.</p><p> </p><p>The first few stations went by with what they called ‘small spooks,’ so to ease them in – some would say to lull them into a false sense of security. They went about as expected. Auggie thought it was all great fun and would want to take it all in before moving on. The Zhu sisters would take Maya’s offer to heart, each clasping the hands of either ‘Narcissa’ or ‘Serafina’ as they went, and Sara would be absolutely unflappable. It unsettled some of the performers, but Maya would give them a shrug as though to say, ‘that’s just how she is.’</p><p> </p><p>Surely, the next bit would get to her, or at least that was Riley’s assumption; Maya was not near as sure as her. She expected much of the same, and that was what they got. The zombies made their great lumbering walk down the corridor, sending the Zhu sisters in a sudden shrieking fit, while Auggie looked on with great awe, imitating some of the zombies while also giving some werewolf howls to match his costume. Little Sara looked at all of them as they went by in about the same way she might have looked at the most common of things. If Maya hadn’t known her as long as she had, she might have taken offense that all their hard work didn’t move her. The truth most people wouldn’t see was that she <em>did</em> enjoy things, and Maya expected to hear all about it later.</p><p> </p><p>The passing of the zombies was a rousing success. Dylan was kind of the walking dead, though still being the same Dylan they knew underneath, he didn’t crowd the frightened Marley and Michaela, instead focusing on Auggie and Sara, who were happily responsive and not responsive at all, respectively. And, after having done their bit, they moved along before disappearing out of sight.</p><p> </p><p>“Those were some good zombies,” Auggie declared, still with a great smile on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“‘Good’ zombies?” Maya the vampire asked with an ease of being. “Yes, I suppose they are good at eating the brains of little children…” she told him and Sara, then looking down at the two girls grasping hers and Riley’s hands, “Only the bad ones, of course. They wouldn’t dream of touching yours,” she told them.</p><p> </p><p>“Now what would all of you say about playing some games? You can win some prizes,” Riley informed them.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the candy?” Auggie asked.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the monsters?” Michaela asked.</p><p> </p><p>“The candy will be found after the games,” Maya told Auggie. “And the monsters, like the zombies, have a very particular taste,” she turned to the sisters. “And they only reside in our great house…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0265"><h2>265. Their Spooking of the Treaters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas would come to find that there was something good about the way they were positioned in the house. Every time there came a new pack of kids led by the two vampire girls, it meant she’d arrive, and she’d be there with him for a few minutes. Even when she’d leave, she’d do so with a smile back at him as though to promise she’d be back in a little while. And there would be so many kids keeping him and his band of ghosts busy that he’d hardly see the time go by. Then she’d be back.</p><p> </p><p>At hers and Riley’s first pass, they came accompanying Auggie, Sara, Michaela, and Marley. Those last two quickly spotted their big sister among the ghosts, and they ran to her. Once the kids reached the ghosts, it was the end of their haunted house run. If they’d won prizes at the witches and warlocks’ games, they would claim them here, and of course, the big prize on the end was the candy.</p><p> </p><p>“Now who do we have here?” Lucas addressed their first guests, taking on the voice of his character, which wasn’t so far from being his own voice, though he had tried to adopt a sort of ‘old time’ tone, whether the kids understood it that way or not. “You’ll have to forgive my memory, it hasn’t been the same since they took off my head…” he lamented, giving his good sort of decapitated head shake. The Zhu girls startled, making Nadine the ghost bite back a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah,” Auggie blinked. Sara stared up, so Lucas knelt down. “How did you do that?” Auggie asked, pointing to his neck.</p><p> </p><p>“With an axe, ha!” Maya proclaimed, batting her arm in demonstration.</p><p> </p><p>Sara, quiet as a mouse, leaned in to inspect this ghostly boy from up close. She reached out one hand, to go feel for the gap between head and body, much to the Zhu girls’ horror. They squeezed their eyes shut. Lucas didn’t step back, let her poke her small finger where Maya had painted. When she touched skin and not a hole, she actually gasped, retracting her hand, which might have been the more surprising thing to the rest of them.</p><p> </p><p>After that, the quartet of kids had been ushered in by the rest of the ghosts, leaving the ‘head’ ghost (Dylan’s joke, favored within the group) and the vampire girls to talk for a moment. Maya and Riley told him about the kids’ experience of the house up to that moment, the small spooks, the zombie pass, the games of the witches and warlocks… It had all gone exactly as they would have hoped it to go, and though they knew it was likely that things wouldn’t all run smoothly, this first run had been absolutely encouraging.</p><p> </p><p>As spooked as they’d been everywhere, the Zhu girls had done very well for themselves, earning prizes at three of the four game stations. Auggie had gotten two himself, Sara had gotten one, the only of the four to win at this game, which had been hosted by the Garcia twins. Halloween could only let their physical identicality work in their favor. They had decided to portray not only warlocks, but warlocks who had accidentally and grotesquely fused themselves together with magic. They would bicker, as only two people stuck together would. Maya and Riley had barely been able to contain themselves as they tried to recreate the effect for Lucas. It was just as well that he’d already seen it.</p><p> </p><p>“It was really good. Joey talking loud, that was new,” Riley chuckled, as Maya tapped her arm and adopted her vampire stance. Riley caught on and did the same. The kids had selected their prizes and their candy and were ready to be taken out of the haunted house, to the waiting parents. The Zhu girls mostly looked glad. Auggie wanted to stay. Sara wanted to poke Lucas in the neck again. He let her do it, and this time the girl actually laughed.</p><p> </p><p>On this note, the quartet was escorted out. Lucas watched them go, and when Maya turned that smile to him, the first of the night, he smiled back; he would smile back every time. Now the first group was gone, and the second wouldn’t be far behind, this time escorted by Rebecca and one of her soccer teammates. It was time for him to start his routine all over again.</p><p> </p><p>The whole run of the haunted house would go by much faster than they had anticipated. There was never a moment’s peace, or boredom. The ghosts would carry on their task, and at each arrival of a new group, whether escorted by the two vampire girls or not, the impression they would get would be that everyone else was having as good of a time as they were.</p><p> </p><p>There would be a few instances of ‘bigger’ kids being a bit less impressed and not so assuming of the mood being presented to them, but those were shown to be almost more fun. It gave them license to mess with them a bit more, or even to make them run scared, and that was better than anything.</p><p> </p><p>Then before they knew it, the last group was coming through, getting their prizes, their candy, and all of a sudden, the night of the haunted house was over. No more headless ghost, no more vampires or melted-together warlocks, no zombies… just a bunch of high school kids who had some cleaning up to do.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0266"><h2>266. Their Spooking of Support</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were all of them in this perpetual state of exhaustion and exhilaration. They had made it through the night, and it had been everything they could have hoped for and more. It had ended in something of an impromptu party for all the volunteers to celebrate the night with a free run at what leftover candy they had at their disposal. Music had been cranked up, people were dancing, and it was Halloween for the monsters of the haunted house.</p><p> </p><p>The cluster that was the group of nine, like many of their freshman cohorts, were just a bit taken with how they were welcomed by the older classes, though those of them who were already on teams with some of them at least had the advantage of interacting with them on a regular basis. Even so, they would tend to remain near one another, dancing about despite how tired they were.</p><p> </p><p>This had gone on a while before they were forced to get around and pick up after the haunted house. They couldn’t put it off any longer, and none of them felt like having to come in on the next day to do it. So, they got to work.</p><p> </p><p>Just as they’d teamed up to set it just hours ago, Maya and Lucas had soon found themselves back in the same room they’d been, undoing their work and picking up whatever else had been left behind by the kids in passing. Going by the number of candy wrappers they came across it was clear many of their little visitors had been going around with their own stock in pocket. The vampire and the ghost had made a game of it to see who would collect the most. They shot off from one end of the room to the other, scooping up the wrappers and counting them as they went. The lead would rapidly shift from one, to the other, and back again, only to shift again. By the time they could find no more in plain view, Lucas had fifteen, while Maya had seventeen.</p><p> </p><p>“More like sixteen and a half,” he frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“I still win, don’t I?” she smirked, only to wince and reach to pull out her fangs. She felt at her lip, but she hadn’t drawn blood.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you, or did you rip some in half to make more?” he ‘challenged,’ and she gasped.</p><p> </p><p>“Calling me a liar? That’s not very gentlemanly of you there, Huckleberry,” she ‘accused.’ “You can count it and then you’ll see, ha-ha, I am the winner. Which will put you in… second place… of two,” she counted off on her fingers with an innocent shrug.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s how it is?”</p><p> </p><p>“It is,” she nodded. After a beat, they laughed. “We should…” she gestured around the room and he nodded. They got to cleaning up. “So, what was your favorite?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well, it’s kind of a tie,” he thought back. “There was the one kid who ran off screaming ‘his head’s gone, his head’s gone!’ Then when we got Sara to react,” he mimed a poking finger. “Oh, hey, sixteen,” he showed a wrapper he’d found stuck behind a drape.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, saw that kid,” Maya smirked, remembering. “He ran past us, through the zombies. When he saw them, he screamed even more and disappeared,” she mimed his running fast. “We’ll probably get in trouble for that?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no way of knowing who’ll be scared of what,” Lucas shrugged. “We’ll be fine. You did a really good job, with the…” he pointed at his neck, then catching sight of something on the ground, he crouched and… “Seventeen.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dead even… dead boy,” she squinted at him, moving up to inspect the newly found wrapper. “Fine, so it’s a tie now,” she reported. He gave her a look.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I did count sixteen and a half for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s seventeen to seventeen,” she insisted. After a beat they moved back to cleaning, like hunters on the prowl. There could still be more wrappers. This wasn’t over. They wanted to win.</p><p> </p><p>But even as they continued to clean, wrapper number eighteen remained unfound. The room was starting to look itself again, the materials stacking up by the door. It came down to pulling off tape they’d laid on the ground as a guiding system for the set up, both of them scooting along in a crouch, until the tape was gathered in a mess of a ball in their hands and they sat on the ground almost back to back.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” he asked, moving back just past her so he could see her. She was forming a tighter ball out of her tape, squeezing it together. He offered out his mess of tape, and with a smile she took it to add to her ball. When she was done, she turned and aimed and tossed it at the trash can and it went in.</p><p> </p><p>“Score,” she announced. She looked back at him, got to staring at his neck again, her handiwork. “It’s really too bad, all this having to be washed off,” she frowned, reaching out to touch the point where his head ‘floated’ over his neck. “Turned out better than I thought it would,” she told him, her voice trailing off, silence gaining on them. Those times she got to see his eyes this close, she swore, never stopped freezing her to the spot, unable to move. He looked just as transfixed.</p><p> </p><p>“I lied before,” he told her, “Those moments I said were my favorites for the day? The real ones were every time you came back, every time you gave me that look when you’d be going.”</p><p> </p><p>It made her breath stall, just a bit. She knew what he meant, so much. And more than that… They might have been her favorites, too. Maybe for that, when she felt him almost leaning in, she almost did so, too.</p><p> </p><p>Yet both of them stopped, at the same time. It would have been so easy, wouldn’t it? Just go for it, in this moment suddenly charged. They could have, but they didn’t, because they knew, they knew… There was still something there, the same thing that had put them in the position they were in. And when they recognized it, and stopped… they did so respectfully, mutually. They looked to each other and they smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” she asked, after looking down a beat.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?” he asked back. She nodded down, and he looked. There, stuck under his shoe, was a candy wrapper.</p><p> </p><p>“Congratulations,” she told him. “That’s eighteen.”</p><p> </p><p>“For you,” he insisted. “You saw it first.” He peeled it off his shoe, made to hold it out to her, then hesitated as he looked at the crumpled, sticky thing. But she took it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll treasure it forever,” she vowed, then burst out laughing, soon followed by him.</p><p> </p><p>“There you are,” Riley’s voice broke them out of their bubble, and they turned to look at her, stood in the door, face washed, changed, no longer ‘Narcissa the Blood Hungry,’ just Riley Matthews, the dead tired. “Are you done? Maya’s mom’s here to take us all home.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas got up, and held out his hand to help Maya do the same. They shared one last conspiratorial look before carrying the boxes out from the cleaned room. Halloween was done, soon November would be upon them, and it felt to both Maya and Lucas that the new month would start off with a whole lot of questions in need of answers, events left to be reflected on with deep intent.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0267"><h2>267. His Confusion With Everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was still just the slightest trace of what used to be painted on his neck the day before when he woke up the next morning. It was Tuesday, and it didn’t matter that he had been up later than usual and exhausted from the haunted house. He had school. Right now, though, his mind was not on English class, biology, any of it. It was really early, even for him, but he couldn’t have gotten back to sleep even if he’d wanted to. Right about then, with everything that was on his mind, he knew he needed to attend to his jumbled brain, or he might as well just stay home.</p><p> </p><p>It was November. That felt impossible, but here they were. November. That meant it had been almost a year already since he and Maya had come into this arrangement of theirs. Almost a year of knowing he liked her, that he wanted to be with her. Almost a year of knowing she liked him back, that she did want the same, except… except they were best friends… of New York, of Texas, whatever… They were best friends and becoming more left them open to that bond being ruptured. Maya hadn’t been ready to take that chance yet, and Lucas understood this, so much, he did. So, he’d been keeping things as they’d been, this holding pattern, since January…</p><p> </p><p>November…</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what he’d expected this to be like. He could just keep liking her just the way he’d done up until now… He certainly didn’t plan on liking her any less, and he didn’t, oh, no. It only seemed like he was liking her <em>more</em> every day.</p><p> </p><p>After nearly ten months of that increase, it was getting to the point where keeping it in, not telling her, was bordering on painful. He couldn’t say it, that’d just be like he was pushing her to make a move, and he didn’t want that at all. And then last night, last night… after the haunted house…</p><p> </p><p>The whole thing had just been everything they could have wanted, and it had led to that room, him and her, picking up, <em>hunting</em> candy wrappers. And then, sitting on the ground together, the way she’d looked at him, touched the makeup on his neck… It had been stronger than him, he’d made the smallest of confessions.</p><p> </p><p>And he could see it in her eyes, so close to his own as they were, she was feeling it, too. For a moment, he thought he would be kissing her again, as he’d done when they’d been in New York. But he’d stopped, and she’d stopped, too. He couldn’t speak for her motivations, but he had to think they weren’t so far from what his own had been.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the time, a thought struck him. It might have been a bit crazy, but right now it seemed to him like it would be the only way he’d be able to get through the day. The time was just about as right as it was bound to get, and if he waited any longer, then his window would close. He picked up his phone, sent a text, then waited for a response.</p><p> </p><p>He could have talked to his family about all this, couldn’t he? Well, maybe not his mother. The thought of telling her about his feelings for a girl felt like the most uncomfortable thing, and he already had plenty of those. And plus, she wouldn’t be able to keep it in, even if he made her swear that she would keep it to herself. It’d have made the circuit of moms by lunch time, to all his friends by dinner… He wasn’t letting this anywhere near <em>her</em>. His father now… Well, he cared enough for Maya that he’d probably give him that whole dad talk like all of a sudden he wasn’t <em>his</em> dad but hers, and Lucas was already dreading the day he’d enter into Shawn Hunter’s radar on that front… His grandfather? He could already hear in his head what he would say, and it didn’t feel like it would do him any good.</p><p> </p><p>So, they were not the way to go. And then their friends… There was a reason neither he nor Maya had mentioned this to them, wasn’t there? And that didn’t change, especially now. Hadn’t he and Maya worked together to ease Zay and Nadine together the summer before last? Sure, it had all worked out for them, but it could just as easily have failed so hard, and then what would they have done? They knew their friends were all more well intentioned than the last, but that could still put them in trouble in the long run.</p><p> </p><p>What he’d needed was to talk to someone close enough, to him, to her, but also a bit removed, and more importantly with a very level head. Only one person fit that bill where he was concerned. If he couldn’t talk to either of his best friends about it, for their own reasons, then he knew who he would turn to… his brother.</p><p> </p><p>The Skype bell rang, and he quickly answered, unsure whether or not his parents were up. Whether or not they were, he didn’t want them coming to check on him right then.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you said it was urgent,” Farkle’s face appeared on the screen, looking to be walking down a street. “Did something happen to Riley or Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, they’re fine,” Lucas assured him. “But I do need to talk, about Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0268"><h2>268. His Confusion With Help</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was on his way to school, had to be, and he wasn’t alone. When Lucas had told him that he needed to talk to him about Maya, Farkle had looked aside and then walked to what Lucas soon guessed was a bench. He sat there, turning the phone until both he and his companion could be seen.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Smackle,” Lucas waved just a bit awkwardly. He had intended to speak to Farkle alone, but it wouldn’t be, by the looks of it. He almost tried to back track until he remembered… Smackle had spent six weeks living with Maya. And also, she knew about the New York kiss, knew about it, and had kept it secret for months already as far as he could tell. It might not have been the worst thing to have her there, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t it a bit early for you to be calling like this?” she asked in greeting. He had to chuckle. If anything, she would lighten the mood.</p><p> </p><p>“I figured you wouldn’t be at school yet,” he told Farkle, who nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya told me about you guys doing a haunted house for kids,” Smackle piped back in.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, yeah, yesterday. It went great. We have a whole bunch of pictures, and videos. I’ll send you some,” he promised, then took a deep breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Did something happen there?” Farkle guessed, and Lucas felt himself frustratingly at a sudden loss for words. He’d called him expressly for this, hadn’t he? He had to talk, couldn’t keep any of them from getting to school on time, and then… Maya… He’d promised her he would go and get her from home just as he’d done while they were in haunted house mode.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he admitted, then, “Not exactly. Almost…” Where to even begin? “The truth is I… I like her, Maya, I like her… as in wanting to date her.” There, he’d said it. Farkle looked… <em>not</em> shocked. “Did you hear what I said? I like Maya.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Farkle shrugged. “I wasn’t sure <em>you</em> knew.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh…” Lucas blinked, sitting down on his desk chair, setting his phone propped up. “How did you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“I saw you, I listened to you,” Farkle replied like it was the most self-evident thing. Now Lucas sort of wished he had talked to him before. “Does she know?” One look at the expression on Smackle’s face told Lucas he had best get talking fast or else she might unleash her secret.</p><p> </p><p>“She knows,” Lucas told Farkle. “She knows, and… and I know she likes me, too.” Again, Farkle showed he had known as much, giving a quick bow of the head. “We’ve known it all year.” Finally, he got some surprise out of the boy in New York.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t get it… You two aren’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“You know when we all came to New York in January?” Lucas asked him, and Farkle nodded. “The two of us went out on our own in the morning, Shawn brought us back to your place.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>That’s</em> when it happened?” Smackle asked him.</p><p> </p><p>“When what happened?” Farkle asked, looking from the girl at his side, back to the screen, now lost. Smackle was giving a look that said something like ‘either you tell him now or I will.’</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we, uh… we… we kissed?” his voice faltered in the most awkward way, and he didn’t know where to look, though his strongest urge was to look back and make sure no one was standing there, listening in.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at the screen instead, for how much Smackle looked at ease now that Farkle knew, Farkle only looked… well ‘completely confused’ would be a good way to put it. Lucas didn’t blame him. He might have been confused, too, hearing of two friends liking one another for so long, liking each other and being aware of it, kissing even… but after all this time being just this and nothing else.</p><p> </p><p>“You never said, all this time,” Farkle finally said.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s… it’s a long story,” Lucas told him. “Maya, she… she’s not ready. Our friendship just means too much,” he went on, saying this in such a way as to show that this was a sentiment he shared with her, all the way, right up until that point, the one that led him to call the one he considered as good as a brother so early.</p><p> </p><p>“Sensing a ‘but,’” Smackle put in.</p><p> </p><p>“Last night, after the haunted house, we were alone, and we almost kissed again… We didn’t, we both just stopped, but…” He frowned to himself. “I know why I didn’t do it, because it was a moment, and maybe we were getting carried away, and she wasn’t really ‘there,’ and if she wasn’t, then…” He paused, thinking back to that moment. “But I wanted to. I want to. But I can’t tell her that. But I’m going to see her soon and I don’t know what to do.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0269"><h2>269. His Confusion With Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could wait forever. That was what he felt sometimes. It was a no brainer. This was Maya, and she was worth waiting for. The only problem there was the actual waiting; that part could be terrible, could downright suck. And speaking to Farkle and Smackle that early morning of the 1<sup>st</sup> of November, he came to admit to himself what he might not have wanted to admit up until then… that the wait weighed on him so much.</p><p> </p><p>For a while he sat there in his room, maybe appearing to look at the screen, when he was really looking just past it, to the pocket watch sitting on his desk. He never wore it to school, thinking the odds were too high that he might end up losing it, or breaking it, or that it might get stolen. It was too precious to him. It represented something to him, more than a watch.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” Farkle pulled him out of his thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, I…” he sat up again. “I was just thinking.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thinking what?” Farkle asked, leading him to continue in such a way that, for a moment, Lucas could forget they were half a country apart.</p><p> </p><p>“Thinking that… not being with her, when I could be, as much as I understand, respect, and… share… her concerns, it’s just… I don’t know how to stand it sometimes. And it feels stupid, I mean she’s one of my best friends, and I’m one of hers. We see each other almost every day, for hours and hours. We make each other laugh, we stand up for each other, comfort each other when we need to…” He thought of that night, all of them camping, the way she’d leaned to him like it was the most natural thing… “All of that, it makes sense…</p><p> </p><p>“Then sometimes I just want to hold her hand, I want to hold her… just look at her… Sometimes I want to kiss her… I have a lot of friends, great friends, you two included, but Maya, she feels like something else, and I just want to be able to show it… but I can’t, not yet.”</p><p> </p><p>He could still recall what it felt like, sitting close to her the way he’d been the night before, her inspecting the work he would soon spend a while scrubbing from his neck. Every time she’d touch him, in the most innocuous of ways, he might as well have been planted under a spotlight. Maya she was that light, holding him in her grasp as he remained fixed where he stood. He might have gone blind and that would have been alright. And then that tiniest of moments, when he’d thought of kissing her and he’d seen in her face that same look, that she’d been thinking it, too, it should have made it so easy for both of them to just bridge that gap, to kiss one another just as they wanted to. But they’d stopped, at the same time. It might have been different if one of them had pulled away before the other, but they truly had not. A photo finish would have declared them both winners.</p><p> </p><p>What did he have to complain about? It was a momentary weakness, little more. He knew why they were waiting, and he’d sworn to her he would be alright doing it and he’d told the truth… still did. Except… last night, and now this morning… what could he do?</p><p> </p><p>“What happens if you tell her?” Farkle asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Then it’ll be like I’m trying to push her to do something she’s not ready to do, and I don’t want to do that.”</p><p> </p><p>“What if she’s never ready?” Smackle asked. Farkle gave her a look, but she held her ground. “What, it could happen,” she told Farkle. “It could be years and years, and then…” she went on, until Farkle shook his head at her and turned back to Lucas and the screen.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t take years,” he insisted, but then the thought had already worked its way into his head. What if it actually went on like this, all their lives, him waiting for Maya, and Maya… never being ready to say ‘go?’ Could he really go through that and just keep going? They were still so young, both of them, and those thoughts were all so new, confusing… so, so confusing.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t be like that. It won’t,” Farkle insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Farkle shook his head. “For all I know of Maya, as long as I’ve known her, all I know of <em>you</em>, and you two together… It’s only a matter of time, not a lifetime, just… time.”</p><p> </p><p>He sounded so sure of himself, so much that Lucas felt that brief insecurity lift away. Farkle was sure, and Lucas knew he could trust in him, felt it deeply. He sat up once again.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me? About her, before she came to Austin, when she and Riley and you were all living in New York?” Lucas asked, knowing somehow Farkle would understand why he asked this. Somehow, his brother of New York would manage to go and show him the way.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0270"><h2>270. His Confusion With Fears</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had told him plenty about herself already, of course, about her life, before they knew each other, but it was different, hearing it from someone else, someone who wasn’t her, who had a different perspective on everything. Farkle had known her much longer than he had, and he could enlighten him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve told you stories before,” Farkle pointed out, looking as though he wasn’t sure how to go about things. “And you know a lot already, everything with her father, her mother, Riley…” He paused for a second. “When we were eight or something, there was one time… Riley’s parents got into kind of a big fight. When Riley told Maya, I was right there… I’d never seen her so upset. She tried to hide it, but we could see, it was really weighing on her and we couldn’t figure out why, I mean it was a fight, sure, but they weren’t <em>her</em> parents, so…”</p><p> </p><p>He could almost see her in his head, this little Maya, blue eyes showing turmoil.</p><p> </p><p>“Finally, it came out, why she’d been so upset. She thought it meant they would break up, that Mr. Matthews would go away, just like <em>her</em> dad did. Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews they were just this perfect thing to her, them, and Riley, and Auggie… And if <em>they</em> could fall apart, too, then…” Farkle shrugged. “Everything was fine in the end, obviously, but even then, it took a while for Maya to believe it.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas thought about all this, and he could really see it. He didn’t know how he hadn’t pieced it together before. It was easy for him to be optimistic about it all. His mother and father were happily married, and for how much they would tease at his mother’s quirks, Lucas knew his father loved her even more than he had the day he’d married her. Growing up with that, seeing the love in them, even hearing of his grandparents, too, he imagined a future unbroken, and it was everything he’d want.</p><p> </p><p>But what did Maya have? He’d known about her father, and how deeply it had affected her. And he’d seen it, too, when her father had been in town over the summer. He also knew about her relationship with her mother, how it had improved greatly, yes, but also where it had been before, the wavering distance caused between them by Maya’s father’s departure and the ripping of their family, their home… He couldn’t speak to her memories of how her parents had been before, when they’d been together, but even so… she’d been raised in the aftermath of a break, she’d grown with the broken pieces, so now… the two of them, they weren’t broken, not yet; they weren’t a thing that could be broken, not until…</p><p> </p><p>“When I was staying with her, she would talk about you all the time,” Smackle stated out of the blue, pulling him out of his thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>“She did?” he asked, and Smackle nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“In her room, sometimes in the morning when we’d wake up, or at night before bed, or just hanging out. One day, I counted, she said your name eight and a half times.” At the boys’ confusion, she added, “Oh, her mom called us to lunch in the middle of one.”</p><p> </p><p>He tried to take in this information as casually as one could, which proved to be something of a rough endeavor because all his face wanted to do was break into a smile. Almost as soon as it got there though, he was left with a return to reality. His situation hadn’t changed, had it? For all he’d heard, he didn’t feel as though he was any closer to dealing with the issue that had made him call to Farkle in the first place. Soon he’d have to get ready to go get her, to go to school, and he didn’t know what that would mean, after the night before, the haunted house, the almost kiss… What would…</p><p> </p><p>The doorbell rang from below, and Lucas startled, with how unexpected it was at this hour. He wasn’t sure what to do, his parents had to be up by now, but up or not, it would still be unexpected for them, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Be right back,” he told Farkle and Smackle before moving to open his door. He could hear his parents’ voices from downstairs, both sounding like they were debating whether to answer or call the police, just as the bell rang again, and Lucas saw the tops of two heads through the window pane in the door. He knew those heads.</p><p> </p><p>He came down the stairs at once, cutting past his baffled parents. His father wanted to know what was going on, and his mother didn’t want him to open ‘that door’ and be murdered or something. There was no chance of that. Lucas opened the door and let in his friends. It was Zay and Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you guys doing here?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“We were summoned,” Riley announced, beaming.</p><p> </p><p>“Right out of bed,” Zay frowned, rubbing at his eyes. Lucas looked to his parents, smiled, and nodded, then said he’d be upstairs with them before ushering them along. As they went, Riley told him Smackle had written her, telling her to get to his house and that it was about him and Maya.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0271"><h2>271. His Confusion With Others</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was all much more than he’d signed up for. Now it was five of them, even if two of those were in New York. Had they been talking so long that Smackle had the time to reach out to Riley, and then that <em>Riley</em> had called Zay and they had both reached his house? Obviously, they had, but still… He needed to go soon, needed to get to Maya’s house…</p><p> </p><p>He had called Farkle specifically so that this whole thing wouldn’t reach his friends here in Austin, and now there were two of them… his best friend and hers… How was he supposed to unload all this on them when he was already pressed for time as it was? They would have a million questions.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi, guys!” Riley waved excitedly to the two on the phone, who in the time Lucas had gone down to let Riley and Zay in had gotten up from their bench and started to walk again. “What’s the big emergency?”</p><p> </p><p>“The big emergency is Lucas and Maya almost kissed last night and now he’s confused about things,” Farkle cut in. Lucas turned to the phone at once, not having expected to have it laid out like this. “Had to get going faster, we have to get to school before you do,” Farkle shrugged, as Lucas felt a tap at his arm which he knew had come from Zay without even turning.</p><p> </p><p>When he did turn, he found himself staring back into a pair of faces that said plenty without saying a thing. Zay’s looked like he’d just busted him… or won a bet. Riley’s was a smile that grew and grew until it owned the whole of her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Man… It’s about time you made a move, it was getting kind of ridiculous, seriously,” Zay told him.</p><p> </p><p>“That wasn’t his move, the move happened months ago,” Smackle informed them from the phone.</p><p> </p><p>“And now we have to go,” Farkle followed. “Let us know how it turns out!” And the call ended. Lucas stared at that screen, hoping those two knew how lucky they were, being so far away. Had they been here, he might have had more to say about being dumped into the middle of this conversation like that.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, what’s this about… months ago?” Zay asked; evidently Riley was in no capability to speak just yet. Lucas sighed, rubbing at his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Last January, in New York…”</p><p> </p><p>“In <em>January?</em>” Riley’s voice returned in a burst, and Lucas quickly shushed her, moving to shut his door before turning again. “In <em>January?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“At the diner, when it was just us, before Shawn found us, we kissed,” he revealed, halfway bracing himself for an outburst, but when they looked too stunned to talk, he went on. He reiterated the situation as quickly as he could, well aware of his running short on time. “We like each other, and we know we both do, but Maya, she… she’s not ready for… everything else. So, I’ve been waiting, but we’ve been getting closer, and last night, we almost kissed again.”</p><p> </p><p>Zay sat on the bed, and Riley followed suit, both of them staring at him like they’d been blindsided by their best friends. They didn’t look upset, just sort of baffled that they hadn’t caught on at least.</p><p> </p><p>“And now?” Riley asked.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I want to be with her… but if I tell her that, I’ll just be putting pressure on her and I don’t want that, okay? Can’t have that.” The message was clear: you two can’t try anything. To their credit, they seemed to grasp this immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“We want to help, okay?” Zay simply stated. “Whatever we can do.” Riley nodded to back him up.</p><p> </p><p>“You knew, didn’t you?” Lucas sat back in his desk chair. The two friends looked at one another.</p><p> </p><p>“It was pretty obvious,” Riley pointed out. “We saw the way you two were around each other. Even before I came here, the way she’d talk about you it was easy to see; I’d never seen her like that. The first day I saw her again, I asked her if you two were together because it just seemed like you might have been.”</p><p> </p><p>Had everyone really seen it all this time? And here they were, thinking they were keeping things quiet. Now Zay was recounting how they had made it so that they’d be sitting next to each other in class. Now Riley was calling back to the day before they’d all left for New York, when Maya had told them about her date with Joey Garcia and how it hadn’t really panned out, and how relieved he’d looked when he’d found out.</p><p> </p><p>“We just thought you guys had no idea about each other,” Riley told him. “We did what we could to make it easier for you, but we didn’t want to do too much, because, well…” She looked to Zay.</p><p> </p><p>“I said it wouldn’t be right to meddle,” he declared, nodding, “I stick by that, by the way.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I agree,” Riley promised. “Mostly because, well… Maya. It wouldn’t work that way, not for this.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, exactly,” Lucas wheeled the chair closer to them. “Look, you have to help me…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0272"><h2>272. His Confusion With Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Earlier that morning he’d been so concerned that he shouldn’t unload this situation on his friends, and now he knew he had had it all wrong. Hadn’t he told Maya, ages ago, how she could trust the rest of them to keep things private if she needed them to? How could he have forgotten it when he himself needed it the most? Riley and Zay wouldn’t breathe a word of this unless he told them they could. And he was running out of time.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” Lucas told his friends. “The time we did kiss, we ended up deciding to stay friends for the time being. But that was almost a year ago, and now…” Could they ever understand what it was like, to stand there and still remember that almost kiss in near perfect detail? He remembered the look of her eyes, the eyes of the vampire Serafina but, behind those, the eyes of Maya Hart, too. He remembered how close she sat to him in that moment, and how he’d caught a scent that told him she’d had a piece of chocolate not long before. He remembered seeing she wanted to kiss him, just as he wanted to kiss her, and then… stopping… Now he had to go and see her and pretend like he didn’t remember? Like it hadn’t happened?</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>could</em> talk to her,” Riley offered, but Lucas looked at her and shook his head. Riley had been his friend from the moment he’d met her, so easily introduced into his life for having heard of her through Maya for a year, just as with Farkle. And for the bond she had with the girl who presently had his head so confused, she became that much more important. But even for that, he wouldn’t have her intervene that way. He understood Maya’s hesitations to the point where it could be said he felt them as much as she did, and Riley’s possibly speaking up as she intended to do… it just felt like trouble waiting to happen. He couldn’t take that risk, not with Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, you have to lighten up about this,” Zay insisted. “You make it more complicated than it has to be and all you’ll end up with is the thing you’re trying <em>not</em> to have happen. You just need to let it come the way it has to come, and it will. Seriously, you guys are kind of ridiculous, and I mean that in a good way. You’ve been friends for over two years now, and I say this as your best friend, but you and her you’ve been something from day one. Of all the people she could have been assigned as her guide, she got me, and that meant you were able to trade places with me, without even knowing who you’d get. If you ask me, that means something. That means… It’ll happen, sooner or later.”</p><p> </p><p>He turned for a moment, looking at that drawing on his wall, him and her, the day they’d met… He couldn’t pass off what Zay told him because he knew just what he meant, and he knew he was right.</p><p> </p><p>“Zay’s right,” Riley told him, echoing his own assessment. “And I say this as <em>her</em> best friend. You matter enough to her to make her that scared of losing you? What else is there to know?” Before he could answer, his door opened, and the trio turned as one to find Mr. Friar looking back at them with a curious frown.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure whatever this is here is very important to you, but if I may point out the time?” They looked at the clock, and Lucas stood at once. He had to get dressed and quick.</p><p> </p><p>“You get ready, I’ll get you breakfast,” Zay left the room.</p><p> </p><p>“And I’ll run back home,” Riley followed. “You and Maya have to come pick me up!” Mr. Friar watched them both go from where he stood before turning back to his son with inquisitive eyes. Lucas was already moving to get his clothes together.</p><p> </p><p>“Do I want to know what this is about?” his father asked. Lucas turned back to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe, but not enough that it can’t wait.”</p><p> </p><p>“You promise?” his father gave him a look, and Lucas nodded. “Alright, well I will be waiting to hear,” he said as he walked back to head downstairs. He was barely gone that Lucas was making a mad dash to get out of his PJs and into his clothes. He was pulling on his shoes when a piece of toast with a layer of peanut butter and strawberry jam was pushed into his line of sight. He looked up, taking it, to find another one of those in Zay’s other hand, already half consumed.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I didn’t eat either,” he pointed out. “Word of advice, if you’re going to haul yourself out there and eat too, then don’t overdo it, you’ll get cramps. At least take your bike and leave it at her house.” Lucas stared at him. “Your mom’s words, not mine.”</p><p> </p><p>“What are <em>you</em> gonna do?” Lucas asked before taking a bite of his toast.</p><p> </p><p>“Take a page from your book and go pick up <em>my</em> girl at home,” Zay declared, then off Lucas’ look, “Say what you want, okay, Maya’s your girl. Now go get her,” he tapped his arm with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>With that, Lucas got hold of his bag and moved quickly down the stairs. He called out goodbyes to his parents before moving to grab his bike. He couldn’t say how many bites he’d taken – or how few, big as they were – but he’d swallowed the last of his breakfast before his bike could speed around the corner of his street as he made for Maya’s house.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0273"><h2>273. His Confusion With What If</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It felt as though he was doing more than just riding his bike – speeding on his bike – that morning, first of November. He knew that no matter which way this all turned out, today would signal a new shift in their relationship. Whether this would be good or bad was really anyone’s guess at this point, Lucas himself included. But it was true, wasn’t it? There was no chance at all that what had happened the night before – or almost happened – wouldn’t inform on what came next for them.</p><p> </p><p>It could be that it would lead them down the path he had been longing for. It didn’t have to be so bad that they’d waited all this time, did it? In the last ten months, he had felt his feelings for Maya expand… solidify… What would it have been like, had they just up and started to date all the way back then? It might have still been good, sure, but it might also have put them through all the steps of their first entrance into the world of dating while they were both still trying to put it all into words. Just thinking about it felt sort of terrifying, and he was frankly glad they hadn’t gone down that route.</p><p> </p><p>The fact that they’d lived all this time with the knowledge, let it mature as it did, let it show that it was steady and unshakeable, might have been more encouraging than anything. That was proof enough of something, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>Then again… then again maybe it wouldn’t be the moment they’d waited on, maybe it would be that she told him the same thing as she’d told him before, that she wasn’t ready, and <em>then</em> what would happen? What would he be supposed to say?</p><p> </p><p>If he just said okay, wouldn’t she think it meant that it didn’t matter to him whether they moved forward or not? All the same, if he protested, she might feel he was pushing, which he’d been working so hard not to suggest. Whatever he did or said, it could turn things sour all of a sudden, and there’d be nothing for him to do.</p><p> </p><p>The whole thing just wouldn’t leave his mind, would it? All these months, he’d thought about it, sure, but only every so often, and it didn’t control his life. The last week or so, however, it felt that the levels were rising, higher and higher, and then since yesterday they had just… hit a fever pitch. Now it was all he could bear to think about, and he didn’t know how he had gotten there or how he would come back out.</p><p> </p><p>And now some of the others knew. Farkle, Smackle, Zay, Riley… Would the rest of them pick up on it? Had they already? Clearly the four he had spoken to already might not have known <em>everything</em>, but they did know <em>some</em> things, enough that they weren’t entirely as surprised as he might have expected them to be. Dylan was anyone’s guess, would either know loads more than any of them could suspect he would, like he could have been blindsided and know nothing at all.</p><p> </p><p>Asher… Oh, actually, now that he thought back on it, he was almost sure he <em>did</em> know. It went back to the start of the school year, when they had all been messing with him a bit about the whole Alicia thing, how she’d been his first kiss. Lucas had made a pass at the subject, and Asher had gotten this look on his face… He hadn’t known what it was supposed to mean back then, but thinking about it again, it finally looked to him as though it said ‘you better hope I don’t turn this topic on <em>you</em>.’ Somehow, he knew about the kiss; he was almost sure.</p><p> </p><p>Joey, Rebecca… They weren’t always there with the rest of them, outside of class. Even then, they could have known, but he couldn’t be sure.</p><p> </p><p>Then Nadine… He could almost mark her on principle as having already put two and two together. It just didn’t seem to him that they could have gotten one past her, she could really have figured it out in one of a hundred ways, he didn’t doubt it anymore after his ‘enlightening.’ Still, he would sit there on his bike, trying to come up with some form of evidence, some memory that could have felt insignificant for a while, but suddenly would make perfect sense.</p><p> </p><p>Last summer… The camping trip… When Maya had just leaned right to his side the way she’d done, hadn’t Nadine reacted? Sure, he’d been plenty distracted by Maya’s nearness at the time that anything would have escaped him, but he was almost sure he had seen a smirk on Nadine. Was he just imagining it? Did he just want proof that everyone probably knew already? Maybe it would feel simpler if he knew that they knew, and no matter what happened today, they would know, and it would be one less pressure…</p><p> </p><p>No, no… That wasn’t right. It’d be complicated even then. No matter what he did, it would always come back to this… thing…</p><p> </p><p>He thought back to what his friends had told him that morning. He thought about what Farkle had told him, the story of the fight between Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews some years ago and how it had affected Maya, how her home situation had given her a different outlook on life, on relationships, and why it would be this hard for her to take that jump.</p><p> </p><p>This would then take him right over to what Riley had said, that there was a reason Maya would be scared this way, that he mattered that much to her. And Zay, saying that they’d been at this since day one, making it sound almost like an inevitability of fate…</p><p> </p><p>So, this was the big conclusion he was being led to, wasn’t it? Essentially, no change at all. His conviction all this time had just been that he would wait, that he would let her get to whatever place she needed to get to in order to make this happen, and when she got there…</p><p> </p><p>How was it that he both felt like he’d made no progress at all but also like he’d learned so much? Maybe his friends had not changed the outcome, but they had helped him to see he could be alright with it. He had gone in with one determination, that he would wait for Maya, as long as it took. Along the way, he’d lost some of his self-assurance, but his friends had given it back to him. For this one moment, his mind was at peace again.</p><p> </p><p>It started veering back into the panic as he turned on to Maya’s street and wheeled down toward her house. She wasn’t out front, but she wasn’t always; sometimes he’d have to ring the bell. He looked at his watch and saw that by some great miracle he was maybe no more than a minute or two later than usual. That was good, that was really good… one less thing to worry about. He pulled up to the path up to the steps and came to a stop, staring at the door.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t think he’d ever been so nervous without being able to say in any way if it was a good nervous or bad. Christmas, New Year’s, New York… good nervous. Joey Garcia wanting to ask her out, or the day he’d come back from Colorado… This one could go either way, and that was the part he couldn’t stand.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas got off his bike, let it rest on the lawn. He would take it out back, after he’d talked to Maya… if it all went well… and if it didn’t…</p><p> </p><p>Okay, so he didn’t do well with nervous. Here he’d been thinking he had more courage in him, but when it came to this, to her… he was suddenly anything but. Was she having these feelings, too? Was she in there, pacing the floor, or sat in her bay window, waiting for him to come with as many questions in her head as he had in his? Somehow, it would make it easier if she did, that much he believed. There was no more space to debate it anymore. He was at her door, and he rang the bell.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0274"><h2>274. Her Confusion With Everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tuesday morning, the first of November… She’d seen the sun rise… She’d woken up maybe five times during the night, every time thinking it had to be morning, time to get up when instead it was 3am, 2am, 1… She’d actually seen October turn into November… midnight… This time though she knew there was simply no point closing her eyes again, so she might as well just get up.</p><p> </p><p>Her costume was still on the back of her desk chair from when she’d changed out of it the night before. She touched it a moment, knowing of course where her mind was bound to go. The night before, and… the kiss that almost was. She had wanted it to be, she did. She could have been a rebel again, could be a rebel for good, except, well… The old loyalist had reared its head again, hadn’t it, easing her back before she could go through with it.</p><p> </p><p>It had ended well enough. Lucas had pulled back, too, hadn’t he? And then they’d smiled at each other, a knowing smile if there ever was one, a smile that said… ‘We know we want it… we know why we can’t.’ But then here she stood, on the other side of her disrupted night, and… she didn’t really know anymore. She had woken up that morning, the last time, knowing… the Rebel, the Loyalist, they had just climbed on to the battlefield and they looked keen on declaring a winner, once and for all, while she sat between them, there in the middle… defenseless.</p><p> </p><p>She picked up her ‘vampire dress’ and went to sit at the bay window. She knew if she reached in the pocket (it had been very important for Riley and her to find dresses with pockets, to carry their more ‘non-vampire-like’ tools through the evening) she would find a flat, sticky candy wrapper… The winning one in her competition with Lucas, found stuck under his shoe, right before…</p><p> </p><p>Of course, she’d kept it; apparently, she’d gotten to that point. Now she would just have to decide what to do with it.</p><p> </p><p>Setting the dress aside, she looked around her room with a sigh. The house was still in that complete stillness of early morning when her mother still slept. When she’d be up, Maya would know. That absolute stillness was usually something she looked forward to, but now… now it just felt like means for her head to ring with battle.</p><p> </p><p>He’d be coming to get her this morning, like he’d done yesterday morning and all those of the week before and then some. Did he know how much she’d come to look forward to those walks? When he’d told her that he would keep on doing it yesterday, she had felt just genuinely so relieved, so… happy. Just those few minutes of him and her every morning as they walked to Riley’s house were enough to set her for the day with a boost.</p><p> </p><p>But even then, she knew, she felt… something was missing. In a perfect world, or in the world she could create in her head, their hands would be joined, or her arm would be crossed with his, or his arm would be around her shoulders. And they’d be happy, they could be, they could…</p><p> </p><p>Her imagining just had a way of veering very suddenly into this place of apprehension, of warning, telling her that this way could be trouble, so much… and then she’d be done imagining.</p><p> </p><p>She’d thought for sure she’d become braver than this by now, that she’d learned to hope better than this, but maybe it didn’t work the same when it was her… and him… Then it was the least brave she could be. But she wanted to be. As thankful as she was to her loyalist, she had always been on the side of the rebellion, hadn’t she?</p><p> </p><p>Maybe for that reason, she had made what might be considered a shocking decision. She had decided to consult her mother.</p><p> </p><p>Not too long ago this would have sounded downright mad… and maybe in a way it still did. Her mother, Katy Hart, was not in the habit of taking anything lightly. Maya didn’t know what she would do upon learning there was A Boy. It had been one thing when Joey Garcia had shown up on their doorstep to take her out on a date. It had not gone anywhere and, if she was honest, she had gone into it expecting as much.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas Friar was something else. He was someone she cared very deeply about, someone she had shrouded in the protection of this choice they’d made last January, someone she could see herself… well… <em>more than ‘like,’</em> she’d say. She’d <em>have</em> to tell her mother, sooner or later, if she had any aspirations to make anything happen. Not ‘if.’ She was the Rebel, wasn’t she? The Loyalist needed to retire, seek over ventures.</p><p> </p><p>She went up to her mother’s bedroom door, listening for a moment. She could just barely make out creaks of motion, like her mother was turning over in bed. Maybe she was awake. With a breath, Maya slowly pushed the door open.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, you awake?” she whispered. The dishevelled blond head on the pillow turned over, eyes focused on her. She waved. “Can I talk to you about some…”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t have to say more: her mother pulled back the covers and waved her over.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0275"><h2>275. Her Confusion With Sharing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya climbed into that bed, immediately wrapped in the protection of arms, and blankets, and warmth, and she could so easily have shut her eyes and gone back to sleep. It brought back memories of childhood, of knowing she was loved by someone who would never, ever leave her, and there was such power in knowledge of that kind, wasn’t there? There was to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Here I was, waking up, thinking about work and how busy I would be, and now here you are, and I feel so much better,” her mother declared, some sleep still in her voice, before pressing a kiss to the side of her daughter’s head. Maya held her closer, smiling. “Hey…” Katy spoke again. “What did you want to talk about?”</p><p> </p><p>She had to speak now, she knew, and yet… she just kind of froze at once. She hadn’t said anything yet, she didn’t have to start. The Loyalist was attempting a resurgence, counseling for her to protect herself, to keep it all in. And it wasn’t so bad a thought, was it?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Her mother was poking at her chin, inciting her to look up and meet her gaze. If she did, wouldn’t her mother see right through her? Why had she come here? Now she was stuck… “Maya… Come on now, if you keep not looking at me, I’m going to get scared that something’s wrong. <em>Is</em> something wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not wrong, just… I don’t know,” Maya responded, turning on to her back and staring up at the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>“Something’s bothering you, and you came to me,” her mother pointed out. “That makes me glad, but mostly it makes me concerned that it’s really important, for you not to just go to one of your friends, or… Shawn… or the Matthews…”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that what I do?” Maya finally looked at her mother, immediately seeing the growing concern there in her eyes. She hadn’t meant for her to feel that way. But now to be put against the lack of times she had turned to her mother for advice…</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, the way I see it, if you get what you need and it’s right, then it doesn’t matter where it came from. If I get to help you this time, then I need you to let me.” She’d reached out, stroking her little girl’s face as she did, and Maya could feel herself filled with peace.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just… it’s hard.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why?” her mother asked, and Maya frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know why, just that it is. I’ve been keeping this to myself for so long. I <em>haven’t</em> told my friends, not even Riley, and I <em>haven’t</em> told Shawn, or the Matthews. This whole year, it’s just been this secret, and I was fine with it, but… I don’t think I am anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>This. This felt new. She was tired of holding in the secret, to sneak around with the knowledge of her feelings for this wonderful boy, or the choice they’d made, the choice he had accepted to make for her. She wanted to leap, and it was making her fear balloon out and try to float her away.</p><p> </p><p>“A year? Maya, you’ve been keeping a secret for a year?” her mother asked, slightly startled.</p><p> </p><p>“Almost a year…”</p><p> </p><p>“Still,” her mother gave her a look. “What kind of a secret? Did you do something, did… did someone do something to you?” The serious shift in her mother’s tone made Maya realize her vagueness had allowed <em>her</em> mind to go down a really bad road.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, it’s nothing like that, no…” she vowed at once, and she felt her mother relax. “It’s not even a bad thing, it’s good, or it could be, if I…”</p><p> </p><p>“If you what?” her mother asked, and again Maya felt her hesitation seize.</p><p> </p><p>It should have been so simple, shouldn’t it? A girl talking to her mother, asking her for advice. She just hadn’t done it before, not for anything that big. Mostly it was to do with how she’d kept it from her all along.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want you to think I didn’t tell you because I was… ashamed, or that I thought you’d disapprove. I just wanted to keep it quiet, between us.” She paused, feeling like the Rebel had nudged her forward.</p><p> </p><p>“Between… Who else knows about this?”</p><p> </p><p>“Me, and… and Lucas, it… well, it concerns him, too,” she slowly revealed, watching her mother’s face as she did so. She couldn’t describe the path her mother’s mind travelled in the next three seconds, but it felt to Maya like it must have veered down more questions than the time should have allowed. When she came out on the other side of it, her mother sat up in her bed, so Maya did, too.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you, and… Lucas… have been keeping a secret, for almost a year,” she slowly stated the facts so far, and Maya nodded. Her mother let out a breath that sounded like ‘I’m going to stay calm and see what comes next.’ “Can I… Can I know what that secret is now?” Maya nodded again: it was time.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0276"><h2>276. Her Confusion With Feelings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So where to even begin? She had a thought, and she told her mother she’d be right back. Climbing out of the bed, she marched off back to her room, reaching for one sketchbook on her shelves, and the other – the one <em>he’d</em> given her, from its hiding place. She stood to return to her mother’s room just as her mother appeared at the door. So instead of going back, she went and sat on her own bed, while her mother joined her. She flipped through until she found the drawing that she’d done to capture that moment on the bus, after the failed date with Joey Garcia, when she’d understood her feelings. She held out the book to her mother, who slowly took it and looked at the image on the page.</p><p> </p><p>“The secret is a drawing?” she asked, lost.</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s… what it represents, I guess, it’s… how I feel… about Lucas.” Her mother looked at her, then back at the drawing. She looked at it, looked deeply. Maya watched her take it in, and to see the emotion it provoked in her, like she could almost see into her heart when she’d drawn that… it was both the single most terrifying and most invigorating experience. Her mother understood how much she liked him.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, so tell me,” her mother smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I… He’s been my friend since I met him. My best friend from Texas… And it was always different when it was him and me, but I didn’t get it, not like that. Then Riley moved here, and she thought me and him might have been together. That’s mostly where I started to know, but also later… At Christmas, when I didn’t get him for Secret Santa, I used the money I’d been saving up to buy my new pencils to get him a present anyway. I got him a pocket watch, like his grandfather has, because I knew he wanted one.”</p><p> </p><p>“But you did get those pencils, I’ve seen them…” her mother frowned, and Maya shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas got me those for Christmas… with the money <em>he</em> was saving for the watch.” Her mother looked at once sort of touched. “Then at New Year’s, we sort of talked, but it kind of stayed the same. We knew the other felt something, but that was it. Then it was my birthday, and Joey asked me out. I went on that date… to be sure. I drew that after I came home.”</p><p> </p><p>The next part was going to be the trickiest, but she had started now, she couldn’t stop.</p><p> </p><p>“When we went to New York, the… morning when we took off and Shawn found us…” she started carefully, seeing how her mother tensed at the memory, how scared she’d been, not knowing where she was… “Lucas stayed with me, he made sure I’d be okay, that I was okay. And then he… I… We sort of… kissed…” Were her cheeks red? They sure felt warm.</p><p> </p><p>“Sort of?” her mother asked.</p><p> </p><p>“We kissed, just once,” Maya stated, letting facts be facts. She looked at her mother, again running with more thoughts than time should have permitted. She looked like she wanted to say something, but instead waited, deciding to go the way of waiting to hear the rest.</p><p> </p><p>“When we came back to Texas, we talked, and… we decided, or… I told him I wasn’t ready for us to be more than friends yet, and I asked him if we could stay as we were. And he agreed. That’s how it’s been since then. Almost a year of knowing I liked him, him knowing he liked me, and each of us knowing about each other, but no one else… It’s been our secret.”</p><p> </p><p>There, she’d said it. Wasn’t so hard, was it? She hadn’t turned to stone, hadn’t run away. She’d just told her mother. Of course, now… now she had to hear how her mother would respond, now that she had the truth.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother looked back down to the drawing, then to all those on the walls around them. Maya sometimes thought it might have been time to take them down, to let her walls breathe, to let herself grow. The reason she’d put all those drawings up for didn’t really exist anymore, did it? She didn’t need her blanket of art to feel secure anymore, did she? But at the same time, she didn’t want to take them down. It wouldn’t have felt like her room without them. She’d swapped some out over time, added more… There were more pictures mixed in, too, taken with her camera.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had a noted presence on those walls. All her friends and loved ones did, of course, but each of them did sort of speak in a different way. And his representation… well, now that she looked at it, she guessed it <em>was</em> sort of obvious, if you knew to see it. Maya certainly did in that moment, and she had to wonder if any of her friends had put the pieces together, with the amount of time they spent in here. And her mother…</p><p> </p><p>The way she looked at her now, she did very much look like someone who wasn’t entirely as surprised as she could have been.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you know?” Maya asked her. “About us, about how I felt about him?”</p><p> </p><p>“Baby girl, please, I <em>have</em> eyes…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0277"><h2>277. Her Confusion With Reactions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Looking back at her mother now, she must still have had that bewildered look on her face, because her mother just went and smirked, staring back at her. She didn’t know what to say, so instead she listened, as her mother went on to talk.</p><p> </p><p>“Clearly I didn’t see <em>everything</em>, might have seen what was going on with you two if I did,” Katy shook her head, still looking stunned. “When we first got here, you were just so… if you don’t mind me saying, you were down in the dumps.” Maya chuckled despite herself, but she nodded for her to go on. “The minute you met your friends that changed, but him… Honey, you just lit up, every time.” Maya smiled, and her mother pointed at her face. “See? Like that. And since then, it only kept going. I never said anything. I mean I remember when <em>my</em> mom would mention any boy <em>I</em> liked to me, I was… I was mortified,” she confessed, much to her daughter’s amusement. “I <em>was</em> this close to butting in, <em>this</em> close,” she mimed. Maya looked at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Then… you don’t… mind? About Lucas, I mean.” She’d never pegged herself for wanting her mother’s approval, but now…</p><p> </p><p>“That boy looks at you like you’re everything that’s good in the world, which I can appreciate. I’ve only ever seen him treat you with care and respect. I couldn’t hope for anyone better, if you don’t mind me saying,” Katy told her, grasping her hand. Maya couldn’t keep from smiling right then, even if she tried. She had never thought she could have this kind of talk with her mother, and now that she had, she couldn’t believe she’d waited this long. She leaned in at once to embrace her, and her mother held her close, laughing.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Mom…”</p><p> </p><p>“You are very, very welcome,” her mother promised.</p><p> </p><p>Here she’d thought it would be harder, that her mother would flip out, like she hadn’t been shown, time and again since they’d come to Texas, that she and her mother were past all of this. Of course, she still had to talk to Shawn, and she didn’t know how <em>that</em> would go. Maybe it was better that she did it now, while they were here and he was back in Philadelphia, to give him time to process. When she mentioned this to her mother, it made her laugh. Maya frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“No, yes, maybe you should do it that way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does he know? About the suspension and all that?” Maya asked. <em>She</em> hadn’t told him.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, yes. He could tell Lucas was older than the rest of you, so I explained it to him, like you did, and like his parents have told me, too, that mistakes were made, but they were behind him. And Shawn got it, I swear to you. He wouldn’t exactly be in any place to argue either,” her mother gave a look that said ‘and that’s just between you and me.’ Maya smiled, understanding. “Shawn will be fine, he’ll do his bit of it, but all in the interest of looking after you.” There really was no doubt to that. Maybe a part of her was looking forward to it, Shawn Hunter being all… well… fatherly… There, she’d said it… thought it. It felt like that kind of day.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” was all she <em>did</em> say. After a beat, her mother seemed to be reviewing what they’d discussed, and coming up to a bit of a snag.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, you came to me to talk to me about something. So far, you’ve told me you liked him, he liked you, there was a kiss, and that was all, then the promise of waiting. Was that all, or… I’m thinking there’s more, am I right?” Maya nodded. “Oh boy, okay. Tell you what, I could really go for a coffee right about now, let’s move this into the kitchen, we…” She started to get up, then, when Maya didn’t move, she sat back down.</p><p> </p><p>“Last night, after the haunted house, we… we almost kissed again.” Her mother looked at once intrigued, then a bit awkward at feeling it over her daughter’s nascent love life.</p><p> </p><p>“Almost?” she asked, clearing her throat.</p><p> </p><p>“Well we stopped, both of us. But now he’ll be coming to pick me up to go get Riley and head to school, and… I don’t know what to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, I… I want to be with him, boyfriend and girlfriend and all that, I do, I’ve wanted it for so long now, but I…” The Loyalist felt like it was right there, trying to shut her in, trying to remind her why she couldn’t run with the Rebel, and this struggle coming now, as she sat in front of her mother, made it all feel so real that she felt on the verge of tears.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” her mother scooped up her face in her hands and Maya looked up at her. “It’s alright, just tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>“What if I lose him, Mom? What if I let myself leap and then he goes away?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0278"><h2>278. Her Confusion With Issues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She hated this, hated it so much, that, somehow, no matter what she did, no matter how much time went by, it somehow all wound up back in the same place, in the same pattern of her having been affected by her father’s departure. How many things could he infect just by having been gone?</p><p> </p><p>And now she had to bring him up again, to her mother of all people, her mother who had done so much over the years to make her life good, make it better, in spite of him. Telling her about this, it felt as though she might have been telling her that she hadn’t done enough, that it could and was still affecting her in an important way. It just never stopped, and she couldn’t help it.</p><p> </p><p>“Why would you lose him?” her mother asked. She hadn’t figured it out, had she? Maya looked her in the eye, and, after a moment, her mother blinked. “Oh…” She let out a breath. “Oh, baby girl, hey…” she pulled her into a hug, and Maya melted right into it. There could never be a hold like her mother’s. “You’re not going to go through all that. At his best, Kermit wasn’t even a tenth of what Lucas is right now. Why would you think he could ever…”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know… I don’t know, I…” she sighed, pulling back, trying to piece it together. “It’s not like I went out trying to find him, or anyone. But then he was just there, he was my guide, my friend… I could just tell him things I didn’t know how to tell anyone… not even you,” Maya told her, with something of an apologetic look, though her mother took no offense. “I didn’t even know how much that had been meaning to me until… Colorado. That was the first time I thought I could lose not just him but… what we had… and you saw how it messed me up.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I remember,” her mother brushed at her hair.</p><p> </p><p>“We only kept getting closer after that, and that’s before I even realized I might like him… like that. Then I did, and…” And she’d gotten scared. “All I could see now was letting him in closer, and closer, and then it all just going away.”</p><p> </p><p>It had only gotten worse from New Year’s, hadn’t it? That was when things between them had really started to hit their stride, when they had started to run, run faster, closer, down to the edge, and the leap… and she couldn’t take it. She’d stopped, and they’d been sat there ever since, seeing the other side but never approaching it.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t even know why she would go and put so much stock in her father’s departure anymore. He had left, yes, but now, wasn’t her mother happy with Shawn? Or was it that some part of her still waited for the moment when Shawn would disappear from their lives just like her father had done? No… no, she didn’t, she wouldn’t. Their lives were good now, they were so good.</p><p> </p><p>And what would it mean if she suggested this? That wouldn’t be putting the blame on her father, it would be suggesting that this was what happened to her mother, and that she was just like her. How could she even think that? Had she had it so wrong all this time? Her mother seemed almost to be reading her mind with the way she looked at her now, the way she stroked her face.</p><p> </p><p>“I keep getting it wrong, don’t I?”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you’re young, you’re still so young, and all of this… Honey, you’re going to learn it. When I was your age, I thought I knew it all, and let me tell you I didn’t know a damned thing.” Maya chuckled. “You’re so much further than I ever was, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think that has to do with him, and how much he means to you.”</p><p> </p><p>Maybe she was coming to make sense of things, but it still felt very much like she was in a mess and she couldn’t see clearly.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I have a crazy idea,” her mother spoke after a beat. Maya gave her a look as she leaned in and grabbed her phone from her nightstand and handed it over.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Call Shawn. Talk to him,” her mother told her. Maya shook her head at once, but her mother only nodded. “I’ll be right here, but if you ask me, he will <em>want</em> you to call him about something like this, to let him be a part of it, too. Don’t you want to know what he’s going to say?”</p><p> </p><p>“Still not sure on that one…” she admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya…” her mother shook her head. “Call him.” Maya sighed, but finally she put in the call.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Kid!” Shawn’s face appeared on her screen. Her mother scooted over so he could see her, too. “Hey, Katy,” his smile for her was its own. “A little early on your end, isn’t it? What’s up?”</p><p> </p><p>Maya turned back to her mother. How could she have let her talk her into this? But her mother only nodded, encouraged her.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I…” Maya slowly started, turning back to her phone. “I wanted to… to ask you… about Lucas… and me.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0279"><h2>279. Her Confusion With Response</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Whatever Shawn might have believed they were calling him for, once she mentioned Lucas, his expression changed. He blinked, as though saying ‘Oh…’ He wasn’t prepared for that. But he wasn’t backing away from it either. The fact that she was calling him this early to talk about a boy might have been the part that made him the most nervous looking.</p><p> </p><p>“What… what do you need to know?” he asked, scratching at his head. Somehow, seeing him like this didn’t trouble her.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re freaking out, aren’t you?” Maya asked him.</p><p> </p><p>“Me? Please,” he scoffed, like he could even fool her.</p><p> </p><p>With a sigh, she launched into her story all over again. She told Shawn how she’d been starting to realize her feelings for him for a while, and then she’d known it for sure, and then… New York, the diner, the kiss… Did he look entirely surprised that something had happened that day? Not really. And all he could do for now was to nod and ask about what came next.</p><p> </p><p>Well what came next of course was the choice they’d made, the secret, and the ten months of living with it, and the growing difficulty it represented, all the way up until the night before, the almost kiss… leading up to her dilemma. And then there was the hitch, the thing that had been holding her back all this time, this misconstrued fear over her father, and Lucas, and losing him, when she’d never officially… had him. Now here she was, and he’d be coming very soon, and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn’s eyes had gone to her mother for a moment before turning back to her.</p><p> </p><p>“So, here’s the thing,” he told her. “Sometimes things don’t work out. You can go in with the best of intentions, with all the right feelings, and… it’ll still go wrong. But it can – and it does – go right, more often than you think. Do you think, with what I had to compare it to, that I wasn’t scared? And yeah, it didn’t always work out… One day, I can tell you about some <em>real</em> horror stories…”</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn?” her mother cleared her throat.</p><p> </p><p>“The point is,” he got back on track, “I would never have gotten to where I am now, with your mom, if I hadn’t decided that… some things are worth the risk. And once you’ve got <em>that</em> decided, you start to realize there was never any risk at all,” he smiled his Katy smile, and Maya knew her mother was smiling, too. He grew serious again after a beat. “Now this doesn’t mean you have to go and get carried away, you guys are still a couple of kids,” he pointed out, and now Maya felt her face warm up.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, I think I can carry on from here,” her mother spoke up again. “Call you back tonight, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“Please do,” Shawn told her before looking back to Maya. “You okay?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Will be, yeah,” she promised, and soon they hung up. She turned back to her mother when she asked if it had helped. “Mostly?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, right before he almost went a bit over, he did have a point,” her mother smiled. Maya agreed, he did. “The thing is… now the rest is up to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she nodded. Her mother got up from the bed, turning back to her with an expression that asked if she could go or if she was still needed. “I’ll be okay,” Maya nodded. “I know where to find you.” Her mother smiled, though she also looked like she was about to cry over the fact that her daughter felt ready to consult her on this. She went off almost with a flounce in her step that made Maya smile to herself before falling back to her bed.</p><p> </p><p>She looked to her phone, still in her hand. She could call Riley and talk to her about this… Of course, she <em>had</em> been keeping this secret from her. On top of that, she was the product of Cory and Topanga, which <em>had </em>to instill some solid ideals in a person. She might not see all this at all the way Maya did. And she couldn’t call her <em>other</em> best friend, because… well… this was about him.</p><p> </p><p>Why did she even have to call on anyone else though? She’d already talked to her mother, and Shawn, and both of those had been in defiance of what she would normally have chosen to do. Now she’d heard from them, and she’d taken all they’d said. After that, it was just as her mother had said. The rest had to be her choice.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>would</em> decide. One way or the other, when Lucas arrived on her doorstep that morning, she would know what she was supposed to say to him. He was the one she could always talk to, wasn’t he? Why should that change now?</p><p> </p><p>Well if that was going to be the case, then she had better be ready when he got here. She should already be dressed by now, what if he came and she wasn’t out there, what would he think?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0280"><h2>280. Her Confusion With What Ifs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya got up from where she’d been lying, standing in the middle of her room for a moment like she’d completely forgotten what one did when they got up in the morning. Her bed, she could make her bed, yes. It wasn’t necessary, especially when someone was in a hurry, but she had always been good about doing it right when she got up, so why disrupt the routine? So there, her bed was made.</p><p> </p><p>She moved to her closet after that, scanning the line of clothes in order to decide what she would wear that day. She had always been quick about that, and she had come to know the only thing that might slow her down would be if something was on her mind, good or bad. That morning, she felt she couldn’t decide.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” she sighed to herself. “Just pick something, first one that comes to mind.” When her hand reached in and came back again, it didn’t occur to her, not until she’d traded in her PJs for the dress in her hand, that the thing she’d had come to mind right away, she had on good authority, was one that Lucas liked. Did that have to mean one thing or the other? She couldn’t actually say, and she wasn’t about to try right in that moment. She finished getting dressed.</p><p> </p><p>Then it was her hair, and after fussing a while and coming within an inch of tearing it out, she’d decided a ponytail would be the way to go. She finished getting ready, she looked at herself in the mirror…</p><p> </p><p>Did she know what she would say yet? She couldn’t say that she did. She felt she’d never been closer to knowing, that when she saw him it might actually come together. The only problem with that was that, until then, she was left with this swirling of possibilities, the good, the bad, and everything else that could either sit in the middle or expand one extreme or the other, into better… or worse.</p><p> </p><p>It had almost been a year. She was realizing that now. Halloween had just come and gone, soon it’d be Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Year’s, all over again. A year… And all this time, the two of them had just been stuck in this dance, her because she’d needed it, and him… because he was willing, because he cared about her…</p><p> </p><p>What if it finally got to be too much though? If there was a limit to how long he could hold in place before he decided this wasn’t worth it anymore? What if she saw him and the thing that came to her mind was that she wasn’t ready for what she’d already held off on for all this time? Maybe he would come to the conclusion that he was better off finding someone who was ready now. Who wouldn’t want to be with someone like him? <em>She </em>did, of course she did, and he knew that. Except…</p><p> </p><p>Or maybe he would keep on waiting if that’s what she needed. He’d been so understanding all this time. But then last night, after the haunted house, that almost kiss…</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t just that <em>he’d</em> leaned in, no. She’d done it, too. She thought back to that moment and… what had urged her onward… He <em>had</em> been sitting so close to her, sort of how he’d been, back in the diner, in New York. And back then, just like the night before, she’d looked into his face, and she’d just felt like… she had to kiss him, like something in her was calling her to him, something that didn’t care about ifs or buts, that didn’t know about whatever issues she might have had, or held them in any regard that mattered.</p><p> </p><p>That was her heart, wasn’t it? It had no words to give, no thoughts, only a steady beat that suddenly felt like it skipped, or that suddenly grew erratic and strong, all for the sake of him.</p><p> </p><p>She looked back to the sketchbooks, laid in her bay window when she had gone and made her bed. The one was still open to the page of the night on the bus, all those feelings… She picked it up, and she still recalled exactly how it had felt. It wasn’t unlike the way she’d felt in the diner in New York, or last night at the Haunted House.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, come and eat your breakfast!” her mother called from the kitchen. She hurried to put the sketchbooks back in their places before heading out to sit at the kitchen table. “Well don’t you look nice this morning,” her mother gave a smile that made no attempt to hide the twinge of a smirk. Maya said nothing and got to eating her oatmeal.</p><p> </p><p>She thought back to what they’d said. Her mother, Shawn… She’d turned to them, finding herself too overwhelmed to do without, and now that she had, she couldn’t ignore what they had told her, what they’d helped her to discover.</p><p> </p><p>The thing she couldn’t let go of was this thing, her father, her mother, and how wrong she’d had it in her head without realizing. The more she got to thinking about it, the more it felt like… if she’d put those pieces together back in January, she might have had a vastly different year.</p><p> </p><p>Yet at the same time, she would wonder. Was it really something she would want? Would she go and sacrifice the memories she’d made, for ones she didn’t really know? Maybe she might have gotten together with Lucas already, and maybe they would be happy to this day. Or maybe they would have fizzled out already.</p><p> </p><p>No, she didn’t debate the choice she’d made before, not at all. But… what she debated now was the choice she would make as they moved forward, him and her. Would she say go… or wait. The Rebel, the Loyalist, what if this was the day?</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” her mother’s voice brought her back, and she blinked, led the spoon to her mouth so she’d have an excuse not to say anything. “What is it?” her mother still asked, like she didn’t know where her mind was at all. Then her mother was smiling, and it took Maya a shamefully long time to understand why. Her mother was smiling because <em>she</em> was smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“Stop,” she begged her mother, focusing on her oatmeal.</p><p> </p><p>“Stop what?” her mother asked. Maya motioned to her face. “I’ll stop when you stop,” her mother dared. Maya didn’t have to look up to know that her own smile was still plastered over her face, the great traitor. She ate the rest of her oatmeal, downed her juice, then she scampered away from the table to try and pull some sense back into her mind… and her face. It didn’t help to hear her mother chuckling to herself back in the kitchen. She might have called for her to stop if she didn’t know exactly what her response would be.</p><p> </p><p>She went back in her room, grabbing her backpack, rummaging through it to make sure she had everything in there, because what else would she do in that moment? Lucas would be here any minute. Actually, he should be here by now, shouldn’t he?</p><p> </p><p>Oh, what if… what if he didn’t come? What if she’d made him wait too long and he didn’t come? They’d both pulled away last night, hadn’t they? Or had it been just her? No, it was both of them, she was sure, except what if <em>he’d</em> pulled away because he didn’t <em>want</em> to kiss her? Maybe he’d think that circumstances had changed and…</p><p> </p><p>The doorbell rang, and she froze; her heart was giving enough motion for the pair of them right about now. This was it. The final stand of the Rebel and the Loyalist. Lucas was here. She closed her bag, pulled it over her shoulder, then off her shoulder when she remembered her jacket. She moved out of her room just in time to keep her mother from being the one to open the door.</p><p> </p><p>Maya dropped her bag, grabbed her coat, slipped it on, grabbed the bag again and moved to the door. It took one more deep breath before she could rest her hand on the handle and open the door.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0281"><h2>281. Their Turn For November</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Those seconds that preceded the opening of the door had achieved maddening levels of anxiety in him, and then all at once they dissipated when he saw her standing there. The first thing that had captured his attention was her eyes, her face, staring back at him in such a way that he couldn’t help but be reminded… oh how beautiful she was. And then he could see the dress, under her jacket, and somehow it felt like a good sign to him, telling him that everything would be okay.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi,” he spoke, finding his voice had barely any means to be heard, for his own lack of breath. He blinked, doing his best to regain control of himself. “Sorry I’m late, I… I missed the bus,” he pointed to his bike over his shoulder. He’d almost forgotten it was there, or that it might have had <em>some</em> relation to his breathlessness.</p><p> </p><p>“No, don’t worry about it,” she promised him. “Come on, we’ll leave it in the back with mine.” She moved to follow him, then stopping to look over her shoulder, “Bye, Mom, see you tonight!”</p><p> </p><p>“Have a good day at school! You, too, Lucas!” Katy called from inside the house.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, you, too!” Lucas called back, then when Maya laughed, “I mean have a good day, not at school…”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, bye!” Maya ushered him on, shutting the door behind her before the giggles took over. Lucas might have rested in the awkwardness of what he’d said, but… that laugh… She kept on laughing as they took the bike out back, only really calming again as they reached the sidewalk and started on their way to Riley’s house together.</p><p> </p><p>The moment before had absolutely broken the immediate tension of their encounter, but now that it had passed, Lucas was forced to remember what had come before, his nerves, his counsel from their friends… and the big question.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you still have a bit of…” she noticed, pointing to his neck. His hand went to it and he smiled, nodding. “It’ll wash off. No doubt your head is very much attached to your neck.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it’s all there,” he agreed. This was good, wasn’t it? They were talking, and nothing felt too weird, though of course neither of them had brought up the end of last night yet, and once they did…</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t believe it’s already November,” she told him, breaching the silence that was about to gain on them. “It’s like the year just started, now it’s almost over.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he agreed. “Once Halloween passes, the rest is…” He paused, looked at her. The thought seemed to have come to her, too. He’d said it, started them without realizing. Everything he’d gotten himself caught up in this morning had led to this moment. So, who would speak now? And what would they say when they did? “Maya, last night when I… when we… I wasn’t trying to push you into…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, no, no, I know,” she quickly promised. “A-and I wasn’t trying to lead you on or…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he replied just as quick and when she smiled, he did the same. “Good, that’s… I didn’t want you to think I would do anything, I… I know that you… that we decided…”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>They fell silent. They had cleared up what they’d wanted to clear up, and that was good, that was… well, kind of a relief, really. But now that they’d dealt with this, what they were left with was the part that came after. So, they’d had no ill intentions in the almost kiss. But then what intentions <em>did</em> they have? And what would it mean for what came next?</p><p> </p><p>Silence stretched on, not so awkward as it might have been, just… silent. They walked along, him matching her pace, and he got to realize her pace was just sort of slow… leisurely… like she was in no hurry to get anywhere. Was it for the reason he thought, or…</p><p> </p><p>“Did, uh… did you show your mom and dad the pictures from last night? The makeup?” she asked after a while.</p><p> </p><p>“I did,” he nodded. “Well they saw it, when I got home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… right…” she laughed to herself, and he smiled. There was no doubt to it, they both knew the nerves the other was feeling in that moment, the things they couldn’t say already resting so evident that they might as well have been written on their foreheads.</p><p> </p><p>Sooner or later they had to say it. Once they got to Riley’s house they wouldn’t be alone anymore. More than that, Riley had been at his house that morning, her and Zay both. They knew something was supposed to happen, so once they saw them…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he asked, slowly. She turned her head to look at him after a moment, waiting for him to go on.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?” she asked after a few seconds.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to have to talk about it…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0282"><h2>282. Their Turn For Decisions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she’d opened the door, one way or another, she’d known. She’d known where this would go, she just didn’t know how she would actually get there. She saw him standing there, looking the way he did, just sending her heart into somersaults… How could she not know?</p><p> </p><p>His tiny sort of misspoken greeting to her mother had felt just much funnier than he could know as it happened, though later she might tell him about the whole scene of her mother and her, the discussion they’d had… For now, they had stowed Lucas’ bike in the yard and taken off for Riley’s house together.</p><p> </p><p>For a while she was just glad to be where she was, to be walking with him that morning, as she’d done the last several school day mornings and knowing… knowing it would only be the first of many more. That could have made it just one of so many, not particularly special, but she wouldn’t treat it that way. She’d treat every morning, every walk, like it was special in its own right, because really it was.</p><p> </p><p>Sooner or later, the subject of the night before had come up, because it had to. To hear that he was afraid she might have thought he’d been overstepping his bounds, when she had been thinking the same of herself… it was amazing, but also not entirely surprising, not from him. It spoke to who he was as a person, something she had known very well already and yet… The brief sort of reminder only served to nudge more thoughts into her head. They reminded her of things her mother had told her that morning. And really, they solidified the decision for her, as solid as it could ever get.</p><p> </p><p>The decision was one thing. How she still had to figure out what do with it, here as they walked, that was another. If she put it off too long, they’d be at Riley’s house and then the moment would be passed, and they’d have to wait all through the day, into afternoon, maybe even the next morning, although… his bike <em>was</em> at her house, he’d have to get it back…</p><p> </p><p>But no. She couldn’t let it take that long, and not just for his sake. <em>She</em> couldn’t wait that long.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” he’d asked after a while. Looking at him there was no questioning what he wanted to say, and she had no intention to stop him.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?” she’d asked back. He looked just on this side of scared, and she couldn’t explain how it made her want to smile.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to have to talk about it…”</p><p> </p><p>“Looks that way,” she agreed. It would have been so easy to mess with him right now, but then she couldn’t actually do it to him, not now. “You want to ask it, or should I?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m supposed to say it,” he admitted, slowly.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s that working out for you?” she asked with a slow smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Confusing, very confusing,” he frowned to himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Why?” she tried not to smile. “This whole thing hasn’t been confusing at all, has it?” To his credit, he knew she was being sarcastic, and he ran with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, no, it’s been a breeze,” he agreed, then, “Except not really… not always.”</p><p> </p><p>He wore that confusion on his face, in how he stood. He didn’t know what to say, and the thing was that all she had to do to know what was bothering him was to look at him. She didn’t have to think so hard about why he’d wanted to kiss her last night, no harder than she did about why <em>she’d</em> wanted to kiss <em>him</em>.</p><p> </p><p>But he couldn’t say it, couldn’t say… because he didn’t think he was supposed to. How many times this year had he found himself in that position? And all that time he had been left to bear it, for her… for a chance that she’d… well… that they’d…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You’re not going to go through all that. At his best, Kermit wasn’t even a tenth of what Lucas is right now. Why would you think he could ever…</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Oh, she could think of any number of reasons… back then… Right now, she couldn’t find a single one. All she could do was stare at this beautiful boy, who looked at her with so many unspoken words in those eyes of his, and all she could think to herself was that, if she did this right, she could end up getting to look into those eyes as much as she wanted.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re right, Lucas. It really hasn’t been easy at all, not for you, and not for me either, you know that, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I know,” he promised. There was a pause. They’d slowed their walk now to the point where they didn’t so much stop as they didn’t take another step, and so they were standing on a sidewalk, still a few streets away from Riley’s, looking at one another.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I know a way to make it easier.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0283"><h2>283. Their Turn For Yes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had that look in her eyes, the one she would get when she knew exactly where she was going. It was a look he would recognize, and encourage, and hope to see, always, although this time he received it with questions in his eyes. She knew? What did she know?</p><p> </p><p>“How are you going to…” he started to ask, just as she reached out and grasped a handful of the front of his jacket, until he was looking her in the eye and had nowhere else to look. “… make it easier?” he slowly finished his question. “Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just making sure neither one of us thinks they need to step back this time,” she informed him, and he blinked. He tipped his head, wondering if she’d really said what he thought she said. When she stretched up on her toes and kissed him, he stopped asking questions and kissed her back, putting his arms around her as he did; she kept her grip on his jacket, and that was just fine by him.</p><p> </p><p>When they pulled away, only so far as to be able to look at each other, he didn’t know which of the two of them could possibly have had the bigger smile.</p><p> </p><p>He could have thought he was dreaming, but there was no chance this wasn’t real, not when he stood there, still holding her in his arms, feeling the warmth of her breath nearby, not when his heart was beating so fast against his chest. This was real, this was better than real. He couldn’t stop staring at her, thinking how after all this time they had come to… this, now… standing in each other’s arms – or grip – like the world didn’t exist except where it was the two of them.</p><p> </p><p>“Not going anywhere, not ever,” he promised her. “Be good to the jacket?” he joked, and she smirked, casually releasing her grip, straightening out the fabric, fixing his collar, before looking back up to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Better?” she asked. He nodded. “What did I tell you, Huckleberry? I’m kind of a genius.”</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t argue with that right now,” he nodded. “Then you’re not worried anymore?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m just the opposite of worried now, I’m… fiercely optimistic,” she assured him. “Which, coming from me, is really saying something,” she shrugged with wonder. “Tell you what though…” she put her arms around him now. “I think I’m going to enjoy <em>this</em>, not holding back if I want to be near you…”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve held back?” he asked, with some bit of surprise, mixed with curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, all the time, well… there may have been times where I… couldn’t help myself, but now, maybe I won’t have to?” she asked, giving him some curiosity of her own.</p><p> </p><p>“Like if… one of us wanted to hold the other’s hand…” he offered up in suggestion.</p><p> </p><p>“Like that, yeah. Or if one of us wanted to put their arms around the other…”</p><p> </p><p>“You mean like we’re doing now?” he smiled, and she grinned.</p><p> </p><p>“Like that, yeah,” she repeated. “And if…”</p><p> </p><p>He had a good idea of where this was going, so instead of answering in words, he did in action, leaning back toward her and kissing her again. He felt her laugh against his lips as she kissed him, too, and that was as good as saying yes to each little suggestion. All of it was on the table. They may not have been on any dates, but they had been dancing this dance for so long now… Patience had been paid, and they didn’t have to care who might see them, kissing where they stood.</p><p> </p><p>It still felt as it had done before, today, and back in January, like he was just in awe that this was happening, that he was kissing Maya Hart. He didn’t think he ever wanted to get over it.</p><p> </p><p>“We… we kind of need to get going, don’t we?” she asked after a while, catching her breath. He hadn’t wanted to think about it either, but he knew she was right. They had to get Riley and head to school.</p><p> </p><p>“We do,” he nodded, relinquishing his hold on her after a beat. Then he thought back to what they’d said, and he held out his hand to her. He remembered the first time he’d held her hand. It had sort of been by mistake, as they were running around the museum instead of following their classmates on the field trip. This time, it was anything but a mistake. Maya just beamed as she placed her hand in his and fell in step with him.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, let’s go,” she sighed as they started walking again. Here again, he knew, she was taking her time and he didn’t argue with that. Here he was, walking hand in hand with the girl he wanted to be walking hand in hand with. There was nothing else he’d rather do. “Tell you what, Riley’s going to flip out when she sees us coming.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, about that…” he looked at her and she looked at him. “She might flip out for another reason.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0284"><h2>284. Their Turn For Relief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She could still barely believe it. Walking along, her hand in his, and even though she could barely believe what had just happened, it <em>had</em> happened, and to her it felt as though… the last stand of the Rebel and the Loyalist had not ended in defeat but in peace, the Rebel showing the Loyalist there were new things for her to be loyal to, like believing in her own happiness. When she’d reached that understanding, well… the rest had come easy, she’d grabbed his jacket, and there had been no backing away.</p><p> </p><p>That first kiss… second overall but feeling very much in that moment like the first all over again… Neither of them may have had a whole lot to compare it to, but there was no denying it was just… electric, just everything she could hope for in that moment. He held on to her, and even just in how he held her she could feel in his arms, as in his kiss, how much he cared, and how much he had of happiness in him… as much as she did.</p><p> </p><p>And then the one after that, well… that had just taken her breath away, quite literally. She could have forgotten everything of where they were meant to be headed, if not for the weight of the bag on her back and the sound of pencils rolling around in her pencil case that seemed to permanently accompany her movements when she had it on.</p><p> </p><p>They had to get to school. They had to get Riley and get to school, and she wished that they didn’t. She just wanted for this moment to continue… She supposed she’d have to take what she could get for now, and after that… there’d be so much more time… She just didn’t know how much she could be expected to pay attention in class that day…</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?” Maya asked as they walked together on their way to Riley’s, who, according to him, wouldn’t flip out the way she thought.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… she kind of knows… some stuff…” Lucas revealed. Off the confused look she gave him, he explained further. “Okay, so when I got up this morning, I was kind of nervous. I didn’t know what to do, what I would say when I saw you, so… I called Farkle.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” She laughed, stunned. In short order, he had filled her in on his adventures of that morning, his conversation with both Farkle and Smackle, which had eventually included visitors in the form of Riley and Zay, all in the means of figuring out what he was meant to do when he saw her.</p><p> </p><p>It just made her smile – as though she hadn’t been already – to imagine him nervous like that this morning, because of her. When he told her, she gave his arm a little tug, consoling poor fretful Huckleberry.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not upset I told them everything, are you?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“No, of course not… so long as <em>you’re</em> not that I told my mom and Shawn,” she revealed. He looked back at her with surprise, which might have been her own reaction if she’d told herself the very same thing not too long ago. So, she now told <em>him</em> about her morning’s concerns, how she’d turned to her mother for help, which had turned into them calling Shawn, too.</p><p> </p><p>“How… how did that go?” he asked, and she swore she could see his brain get up to the point where he realized that, with this development, he was now squarely in the parental crosshairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Better than you think, relax, it wasn’t like that,” she reassured him. “It was good, actually. Helped me figure out some things I really needed to figure out, about me, and this whole thing, with my parents, my father…” she bowed her head, the old feelings creeping at the back of her mind.</p><p> </p><p>But then she felt them retreat, pushed back with the feeling of his hand giving hers a squeeze. She looked back up at him, and she just smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“All better now,” she told him, and he nodded. “So… Riley knows, right up to… back there…  and Zay knows, and Farkle and Smackle,” she counted off on the fingers of her empty hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty sure Asher might know, and Nadine, too… Not sure how, same way about the others. Not sure about Dylan… Joey… Rebecca…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah… no… Pretty sure they know,” Maya thought out loud. She recounted how Joey had long ago sort of started to say things that made her think he knew there was someone on her mind, and she was fairly sure he knew it was Lucas. And Rebecca, maybe for being fairly new to their group, had seemed to pick up on it, too. Dylan… Dylan had come to hang out one day over the summer, she’d been drawing when he’d arrived, hadn’t put away her sketchbook yet, he’d seen it, started paging through before she could stop him and then… “Made him promise not to say.”</p><p> </p><p>“You drew something about me?” he smiled. “Can I see?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Later,” she promised.</p><p> </p><p>“So, everyone knows,” he recapped, and she nodded again. “So that makes it easier, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“We could mess with them, pretend we just hate each other’s guts or something,” she joked, then, “Then again, they probably wouldn’t buy it.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0285"><h2>285. Their Turn For Questions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Minutes had gone by now since everything had changed for them, and Lucas couldn’t get over it yet. He was already foreseeing about zero information intake in any of his classes today, and then his being made to run laps in basketball practice. Not that he regretted this in any way. Actually, he was more of a mind that, with where they had gotten just now, him and Maya, he might as well be all in.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Maya?” he asked, and she turned to look at him. He just kind of laughed to himself for actually being nervous about this when he was fairly confident on the answer already. Even so, he pulled them to a stop, as they neared Riley’s street, so he could turn to face her; it felt like the way to do it. “Will you go out with me?”</p><p> </p><p>The way she just smiled at him, oh… He might have briefly forgotten all over again that they were headed to school.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me think about that one for a second,” she pondered with her smirk just there under the surface, and all he could think about was how many other moments there had been in the past year where, like now, she had said or done something that just made him want to kiss her, and now… now he actually could have, though he figured he was better off letting her answer instead. “Yeah, that sounds good, yeah,” she said, and as ready as he’d been for it, he still felt a sudden sort of elation at her accepting. “Thinking about kissing me again, aren’t you?” she asked, catching him off guard.</p><p> </p><p>“I… well… little bit, yeah,” he admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“Good, because once we get to Riley’s, and then to school, it’s going to get a lot weirder, so you should probably…” He didn’t have to be told twice. He went and kissed her again, for the date, and for the day that was to come. She looked so bright and happy, standing in front of him, and his hands reached up on their own and held her face. She only looked happier when he did so. “Yeah, see? You totally had to do that,” she spoke, looking back at him.</p><p> </p><p>Again, the knowledge that they had to go on their way had forced them to put a pin in everything and keep walking. At least he could be certain of one thing: Riley would have had plenty of time to get back from his house to her own before they got there. She’d be wondering what was taking them so long.</p><p> </p><p>“So, for the date, are you free Friday night?” he decided to ask. When she frowned to herself, he knew that was a no. She had to babysit Sara, and she might have cancelled, helped find her another, but she had promised the girl they would do certain things together, and she didn’t want to break her promise. Lucas more than understood that. Saturday was no good either and Sunday wouldn’t pass by any of their parents.</p><p> </p><p>“Friday after?” she asked. “I’m free then, if you are?”</p><p> </p><p>“Friday after,” he nodded at once, and it was set. It would give them nearly two whole weeks before they actually got to do something, but that was alright. They’d be seeing each other most every day as it was.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what’s a date like with Lucas Friar?” she smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“I, well, I’ll let you know, or you’ll be there, so you’ll see for yourself,” he nodded, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt. That feeling was pushed away as she pointed out <em>her</em> own experience in that field came down to her and Joey Garcia, and they both knew how that had ended up. “I wished that could have been me, you know?” he told her after a while.</p><p> </p><p>“I wished it would have been you, too,” she admitted. “But you know, after all that, I knew… I knew you were the one I wanted to be going out with, it just… took a really long time for me to get on with it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Kind of don’t mind it as much as I thought I would anymore. That time only showed me how much more I cared about you than I thought.”</p><p> </p><p>It felt as though both of them had a lot of these little confessions to unload on each other, showing what they’d kept to themselves for all this time. He was excited about it, he realized, and she was, too, which only made it better.</p><p> </p><p>He started to think about what this day would be like, being in school, telling their friends… And then he’d have to tell his parents, wouldn’t he? If he was still hopping about it by the time he saw them, he’d have to say <em>something</em> or they might think he was on drugs or something. His mother would get all loud, he could see it. She would be nice about it, wouldn’t she? She liked Maya very much. And his dad, well, his dad cared for her, too, he could be happy… Alright, he wasn’t really looking forward to all that, but he was not about to let it all get in his head, not now. If he did, he might end up back thinking about what <em>her</em> mother would say… and Shawn Hunter… even Mr. and Mrs. Matthews… Did Maya realize how many people she had looking out for her? His only hope right then was that he was just one of them, that he cared, and cared, and…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0286"><h2>286. Their Turn For Joy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She swore she had had a dream not unlike this morning many times before, so much so that it took everything in her not to start to wonder whether <em>this</em> was just more of the same. The one thing that kept her grounded in trust that this was real was the fact that she continued to feel his hand in hers.</p><p> </p><p>She was holding to all these little memories she was making now, like she had to press them down as hard as she could, the better to hold on to them, to tell herself to stop doubting, to let herself feel that this would be the start, the first of many a happy day. And she was there, she believed it wholly, more than believed; it was fact, pure and simple.</p><p> </p><p>They were going to go on a date. Lucas and her… In almost two weeks, but still a date… They would get to be… this… whatever they could call it, for all this time before they got to go on that date, but that sort of felt right, too, didn’t it? Here they were, walking down the street hand in hand, memories of one kiss and another still fresh in their minds, when they had just set a day for their first date. Those didn’t feel like the things people did when they hadn’t even technically gone out together yet, did they? And yet they were the right things to do. They <em>hadn’t</em> gone out, but they had already expressed their feelings a long time ago. This was little more than… natural progression… Yeah…</p><p> </p><p>Oh, but they had just turned on to Riley’s street now, and she felt like this moment they’d been having would be forced to stop and she wished it didn’t.</p><p> </p><p>She was also having to think about what it would be like once they got there, telling Riley, and then her parents… It could get back to any of their parents without their getting to be the one to say it… So immediately a plan came about. Maya relayed it to Lucas, who agreed on it at once.</p><p> </p><p>When she reached the house, Maya went around back and up the ladder to Riley’s window. She tapped on it and found to her dismay that her best friend wasn’t in her room. With a frown, she pushed the window open further than it was, and she slipped into the house as quiet as a mouse. She could hear voices, so she went on her way out into the hall and to the top of the stairs. If they saw her, they would find out, she knew; she could already see the look on Riley’s face the moment she’d see her, and it would all be downhill from…</p><p> </p><p>“Maya!” She jumped, turning to find Auggie standing just outside his room. She held a finger to her lips so he would be quiet, before coming to crouch before him.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Aug, can you do something for me?” she asked, whispering. “I need you to go downstairs, get Riley, and come back up, okay? Don’t tell them I’m here, just get her, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>It took a bit more arguing, and the promise of a bit of the leftover candy stash, but finally the boy agreed and went down to retrieve his sister. Maya hurried back to Riley’s room to wait, hoping that Auggie would do his part right. A few seconds later, she heard them come back upstairs, Riley sounding clueless as to the purpose of her summons.</p><p> </p><p>Maya just barely had time to spring out and stick her hand over Riley’s mouth, seeing her face explode with giddiness.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to let go now, but you need to promise to stay quiet, okay?” Riley mumbled something into her hand that sounded a lot like ‘Where’s Lucas?’ “He’s waiting outside, where no one can see him.” Riley’s next mumbling asked ‘why?’ “Because look at your face right now, that’s why. Just stay quiet, get your things, and let’s go, got it?” She gently removed her hand before moving back to the window, the better not to leave Riley any chance to argue. Maya went back down the ladder and waited. After a few seconds, there came Riley.</p><p> </p><p>Maya led her along until they’d made it back to the sidewalk. Lucas stood in wait, behind a tree. The three of them made it all of five steps away from the house before Riley couldn’t hold it in any longer.</p><p> </p><p>“Did something happen? Something happened, didn’t it?” She looked from one to the other, waiting to see which of them would tell her what she wanted – needed – to know. Maya looked to Lucas, who looked back to her. “Someone say something!” Riley asked again.</p><p> </p><p>“I kissed him!” Maya blurted out, provoked, just as Lucas, in much the same fashion, gave his own bit of confession.</p><p> </p><p>“I asked her out!” There was a pause, which to Maya felt more like a volcano, preparing to erupt.</p><p> </p><p>“Riley… Riley, hey, Honey, cool it,” Maya tried to pat her arm, like that would manage to quell the cry of joy that emerged from the brunette. In any case, it was hard to be upset, when that felt like exactly the sound her mind had been making since Lucas had landed on her doorstep.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me everything, I need to know,” Riley demanded.</p><p> </p><p>“We will,” Maya told her, “Later.” She knew she’d have to tell them all, and like in occasions past, one telling seemed enough. Besides… getting to say ‘we’ and knowing it wasn’t the same ‘we’ as before did sort of feel special in that moment. He’d heard it, too.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0287"><h2>287. Their Turn For Truth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Whatever maneuver they had made to manage Riley, they had not factored in Zay, the other one of Lucas’ local counsel that morning. When he and the girls came in view of the school, Lucas was initially left to believe their bench had been taken before they arrived, which did occasionally happen. But then as they got closer, he realized… It was the rest of their group. Zay, Nadine, Dylan, Asher, Joey, and Rebecca… They all sat and stood around the bench, talking amongst themselves, and he didn’t know <em>how</em> he knew, but Lucas knew: they were talking about them.</p><p> </p><p>He looked to Maya, stood at his side. She’d seen it, too. She shrugged; there was little for them to do or say on that, was there? They were planning on telling them anyway, they just hadn’t expected so much curiosity. He guessed, if they had all been waiting, knowing in secret, it would have built up some anticipation in them, too.</p><p> </p><p>“You ready?” Lucas asked Maya, who pointed out there would be little else for them to do, unless they decided to transfer to another school or just become ninth grade dropouts. So, on they went.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine saw them first, and soon she shoved Zay, Asher, and Dylan from the bench, so Lucas, Maya, and Riley could sit. If any of them had issue with that, they kept it to themselves. Lucas felt suddenly sort of exposed, and he looked to the side. Riley was keeping a surprisingly straight face, considering she’d been a frantic little thing the whole way from her house to the school. Then Maya… Would this spook her away, or…</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, we’re not doing that,” she pointed to the bench, addressing the group. “Listen up because we’re not doing this twice. You all know what’s going on,” she said, stealing a glance to Zay, who looked suddenly a bit more nervous. “So, we’re not going to pretend like you don’t. Lucas, you want to…” she gestured to the others, looking at him, and he couldn’t ignore how her direct tone had softened just a hit when she had turned to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… basically… I asked her out, she said yes, so…” he smiled, and she did, too. “We’re going out Friday next week.” In his head, he added ‘and I can’t wait,’ and he was about sure she had heard it.</p><p> </p><p>“You may see some hand holding, all of that, and some kissing…” she followed up, here showing herself suddenly just a bit shy, and he chuckled. She was trying to set how it would all be, leaving the control to the two of them, but even she wasn’t immune to the burst of emotion they had caused in themselves.</p><p> </p><p>The joint declaration had been received as quietly as it could, but now that they were out, the others had to air out their questions, and to little surprise, they were very much focused on some things more than others. Were they boyfriend and girlfriend now? Had they kissed already? These two seemed to be the hot button questions. Then there was the date. What would they do on it and why was it so far away?</p><p> </p><p>They explained about the delay, unwanted by either of them. As for what they would do, well they hadn’t made any plans just yet. And the other questions, well one of them they sidestepped entirely, and they would have done the same for the other, but when it came up, all they had to do was look at Riley’s face. They’d told <em>her</em> about that before, and now here it was, yes, they <em>had</em> kissed that morning. It was probably just as well they hadn’t gone into detail on that or she might have let it out, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, we’re going in there now,” Maya announced, pointing to the school, “Hopefully you guys will have gotten all this out of your system by then? Yeah?” And with that, she took Lucas’ hand and led him off.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” he asked, trying not to laugh. He couldn’t help thinking how cute she looked right about then, but he was also wiser than to say a thing.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she chuckled, so now he let it out, and he got a smile for it. “Well it’s out there now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” he nodded. She sighed, so he let her hand go to instead put his arm around her shoulders. She looked back up at him as they walked through the school doors like that. She couldn’t believe it any more than he could. “They’ll calm down about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she nodded, then after a few seconds, “So, are we?” He wasn’t sure what she meant at first, until he replayed the conversation that they’d all had out there, and he pieced together what she was getting at. Were they boyfriend and girlfriend? “How long are you supposed to wait before all that…” she wondered aloud.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” he admitted, “But if it’s waiting, we need to do, we kind of did a lot of that already, didn’t we?” She let out a sound that seemed to say ‘yeah, no kidding.’ There was a pause, as they both considered this, and then they looked to each other, asking silently. “Well I know what I’d say, and I think you do, too, so just depends what you’re thinking…”</p><p> </p><p>“I think yes,” she told him, and seeing the smile on her face, he couldn’t doubt he had a similar one on his own. “Let’s let them stew on that one a while, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Deal,” he reached out his free hand and they shook on it. “So, you went and got Riley this morning all covert and everything, but what about Mr. Matthews?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh…” she blinked. “Right… What are the chances none of them out there will say something in class today?”</p><p> </p><p>“They can keep a secret,” he nodded confidently. “If we ask them, you know they will.” She did know, and that reassured her. “That means I should probably…” he pulled his arm away and moved to stand facing her instead of side by side as they reached her locker.</p><p> </p><p>“That means you can’t look at me in class today,” she told him, and he frowned. “Clearly you haven’t seen your face when it’s pointed at this one,” she pointed to her own face with an amused grin.</p><p> </p><p>“How bad is it?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, terrible, it’s like someone glued your cheeks up,” she reached out and poked to each of those, making him laugh. “It’s kind of sweet, but if the plan is to keep things quiet, that just won’t do. Come on, Huckleberry, serious faces,” she tried to demonstrate, and he shook his head. She sighed. “I can’t do it either, can I?” she assumed, and again he shook his head. “So, we’re screwed.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, hey, we can do this,” he nodded. “We just need to… I don’t know, think about sad stuff?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” she agreed, then stood there, seeming to attempt to pull a sad thought into her head, which he suddenly feared might have been a bad idea, with the baggage she carried, but after a few moments she just shook her head. “Nope, can’t do it. I literally can’t be sad today,” she announced, and that might have only made <em>him</em> happier in return. “You are hopeless, Friar,” she shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>“Well you’re so happy you can’t be sad, and I helped make that happen, so what else could I be?” he told her, and she beamed, tipping her head until it bumped against his chest, and he closed his arms around her in reflex. “So… what’s the plan?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do what we can and hope for the best?” she replied, voice coming up from below.</p><p> </p><p>“On board for that,” he agreed. “Hey…” She looked back up at him, shaking her hair from her face. “No matter what, this day’s already so good. No one’s touching it.” She smiled, nodded, stretched up for a quick kiss.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re rocking this boyfriend thing so far, tell you what.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0288"><h2>288. Their Steps Toward the Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For all the worries they’d carried from the moment they’d both woken up that morning, they had come out on the other side of November 1<sup>st</sup> just defying all expectations they might have had. Through the intensity of only about an hour full of choices and revelations, they’d then come to wonder how they would manage to get through their school day. How would they keep the revelation from reaching the ‘parental lines’ before they got to tell them on their own when they had Riley’s father for their teacher?</p><p> </p><p>They wouldn’t have to sit in his class until after lunch, but even so they had to be vigilant. They could run into him in the halls, or he could hear about it from someone else… They weren’t exactly helping their case when this whole ‘joy bug’ had them in its grip. But then they may have underestimated the helping hands that were their friends.</p><p> </p><p>All through that morning, maybe getting what both Maya and Lucas needed, they had gone and raised diversion, spreading the tale of how they had all played a friendly prank on Zay the night before at the haunted house, and they were all still so amused about it the morning after. Zay had even gone about using these famed ‘acting’ skills that Katy Hart had discovered in him, playing the grumpy pranked one. The rest of them were all sort of perpetually smiling, chuckling which served to drape a cloak of normalcy over the new couple’s constantly cheerful faces.</p><p> </p><p>By lunch time, Zay had run so deep with the story that he almost seemed to believe they had actually done this prank, and to be genuinely affected by it. He had the prank all figured out, too, and he had told plenty of their classmates about it.</p><p> </p><p>And then, the biggest test came, as they walked into history class. Maya briefly came to regret their sitting arrangement, for how it put both herself and Lucas smack dab in the front row, in front of him. Maybe for that, they were both so stressed about the whole thing that they managed to dissimulate their smiles just enough all through that class.</p><p> </p><p>When Mr. Matthews asked them to wait after the bell rang, they froze for a few seconds before they realized he meant the whole group. He had heard about this prank of theirs, and though no one had been hurt and nothing had been damaged, he wanted to make sure this wouldn’t turn into a thing for them.</p><p> </p><p>“No worries, Mr. Matthews,” Maya told him. “Just a little Halloween fun,” she explained before they all left the classroom. Once they were all far enough down the hall, the laughs had to be released.</p><p> </p><p>After that, the rest of the day didn’t feel so bad. Two more classes, and then study hall… Then they were in the clear once they got through basketball practice. They got through those classes, then off they went, girls to one side, boys to the other, off to practice. Word didn’t reach their teams yet; if it had, they would have known.</p><p> </p><p>Before they knew it, they were all outside, ready to head on home. Dylan invited everyone over to his house, but when both Maya and Lucas backed out of it, needing to get home and do some talking, the others decided they might as well do the same, though they promised Dylan they would go the next day. Asher wondered if it was really necessary for the two of them to go and tell their parents like this, and Maya pointed out that with how they’d left things that morning, she almost had no choice, and for his own reasons, Lucas was in the same position. Besides, they were bound to find out soon enough, so they were better off getting to tell them and not have it become that they looked like they had things to hide; with their past history, that couldn’t work.</p><p> </p><p>“Call or write after?” Maya asked Lucas when they reached the point where she had to go one way as he went another.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know why I’m nervous,” she admitted. “I already told her all those things this morning, and she probably kind of knows already…”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you don’t have anything to worry about, just imagine what <em>my</em> mom’s going to be like,” he pointed out, and she laughed at once. “Yeah…”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, you’re right, yeah, mine might be a breeze. Should I be concerned?” she played nervous now. “Is she going to be one of those who can’t stand their sons’ girlfriends?” she asked, and he grinned.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think you’ll be okay. Who could <em>not</em> like you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Have I mentioned I’m liking this whole… open compliments thing? And may I say, the sentiment is mutual, so don’t go worrying over Shawn coming after you or anything,” she teased, then seeing the flash of panic on his face, she tapped his shoulders. “Hey, hey, I’m kidding, breathe.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0289"><h2>289. Their Steps Toward Sharing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first point in this day where she really felt as though everything had stopped spinning around her was as she sat there on her own, riding the bus home. Everything before had been nerves, and happiness, kisses and hands held, friends, classes, pranks, and practices, and now… a breath… She took it, gladly, knowing it was bound to start again now, as she went to see her mother.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t so nervous about it as she might have been, but she would have been lying if she’d said she didn’t worry at all, thinking of going up to her mother saying ‘so I have a boyfriend now.’ She’d been absently reassuring herself now that her mother actually liked Lucas very much. She’d told her so this morning. And, really, after everything these past two years, if she didn’t like Lucas or found him in any way threatening, there was no way she would have even let her and him hang out outside of school.</p><p> </p><p>When she got up to the house, she went in to find her mother wasn’t alone. Hildy was there, and Sara… There was no way she could do this now… She had almost looked disappointed, but then Sara had looked to her, so Maya had given her a smile.</p><p> </p><p>They would stay for dinner, and a bit after that. She must have carried her need to talk on her face, because as soon as her mother had seen them off and shut the door, she’d turned back to Maya with an expecting look. Maya froze.</p><p> </p><p>“Well?” her mother asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well what?” Maya found herself asking. Her mother pressed her look, approaching her. “Oh… well… basically… we… we’re… going out, next week?” Her mother looked at her like she was trying not to laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“If you talk like that the whole time, that’ll be interesting,” she teased, then with a smirk, she led Maya to come and sit with her on the couch. “So, he asked you out?” She nodded. “Just like that?” her mother asked, and Maya was about to nod again, but she paused, recalling what had led up to the asking out.</p><p> </p><p>“I-I may have expressed my… readiness for him to ask first,” she revealed.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, how’d you do that?” her mother asked, then after a beat, understanding, she turned back to her daughter with a look half startled and half amused. “Oh!”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Mom</em>,” Maya shut her eyes. “It was just a kiss…”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s fine, I wasn’t saying anything, it’s fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re saying ‘it’s fine’ a lot,” Maya pointed out. “You know we made sure no one found out about us until we got to tell you, and his parents…”</p><p> </p><p>“That… That’s very considerate of you guys,” her mother declared, then, “So there’s an ‘us’ now?” Her smile returned, and Maya couldn’t help but have one of her own. “I’m assuming you’ve told Riley and the others?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, apparently they already knew, mostly, so that was kind of… easy…”</p><p> </p><p>“Listen, it really means a lot, how you’ve been talking with me today, this morning, and now… You know you can keep doing that, about anything, anytime, no worries, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Meant a lot to me, too,” Maya promised, “And I will.” Her mother hugged her, and as Maya held her and was held by her, she felt really that this day had been one of those turning point days for her, a big one, too, for her and Lucas, for her and her mother, and she knew she would hold those memories for years and years.</p><p> </p><p>When she’d gone back to her room, it had finally dawned on her just what her mother might have been alluding to when she’d mentioned coming to her to talk about ‘anything,’ and it caught her so off guard that she was glad she hadn’t understood it back there sitting with her. That was so far out of her mind that, to know her mother may have believed that it was closer, left her speechless.</p><p> </p><p>She put all that out of her mind for now. She’d done her part, and she wanted to know how it had gone for him. Looking at her phone, she found two texts waiting for her. The first one reported his having talked to his parents and wanting to know if he could call. The second was his expressing being unable to wait for the next morning, coming to pick her up and walking together. It made her smile, and it reminded her about his bike, still sitting in the backyard. She wondered if <em>he</em> remembered she still had it.</p><p> </p><p>She texted back, saying he could call, then she sat in her bay window and waited. Her fingers were already itching for that box of pencils, the sketchbook, the hidden one… Her head was crawling with images just waiting to be put to paper. They would have to wait. Her phone rang. She saw his picture there on the screen, and the images felt brighter.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0290"><h2>290. Their Steps Toward Telling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When it was just him, on his way home, suddenly the thought hit Lucas all at once that he was actually about to tell his parents he had a girlfriend. He knew it was really nerve wracking when even the recalling of Maya’s now being his girlfriend couldn’t shake him out of that feeling. All day he’d just been walking on this cloud, and it was wonderful, and now… now he had to step off that cloud and go feel very, very awkward. He <em>wanted</em> to tell them, he <em>wanted</em> them to know there was someone in his life he cared this much about… He just wished he didn’t have to do the telling part.</p><p> </p><p>When he came in, they were both there, his mother working on dinner, his father helping (when he wasn’t sneaking some of the veggies he was in the middle of chopping). They were in a jolly mood, which really shouldn’t have made much of a difference, but then it sort of did.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” he started, which was all his mother needed to go into a long bit of talking about her day, telling him what was for dinner, reminding him his gym clothes were in need of a wash, and telling him about his grandfather’s call right before he came. Lucas couldn’t have gotten a word in if he tried, and maybe he’d looked like he needed to, because his father had managed to use his ‘powers’ to cut in before she started in on the next day.</p><p> </p><p>“Mel, Mel,” he spoke up, just as <em>she</em> was asking him where his bike had gotten off to. “What’s going on?” his father asked, just as Lucas paused, remembering his bike was still at Maya’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well… I sort of have a, uh… I have a date… next Friday… with Maya…” There, that was easy enough. The fact that his mother nearly cut her finger when he said it was merely surprise.</p><p> </p><p>“A date? I didn’t realize you two were…” she blinked.</p><p> </p><p>“Honestly, Mel, how could you not?” his father chuckled before turning back to him. “Is that what those guys were here for this morning?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sort of,” Lucas admitted. “I didn’t know they’d come, I just called Farkle, and he and Smackle were the ones to call Zay and Riley, and then…” His mother had smiled when he’d mentioned Farkle, like she tended to do. Lucas looked at her, and he thought she might have been on the verge of tears, the ones she’d get when she would be confronted with the fact that her little boy was growing up. He tried not to get drawn into that.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I just want both of you to be happy,” his father told him with a nod and a clap on the shoulder. “I know we raised you right as far as all that’s concerned, didn’t we?” Lucas wasn’t sure whether to be touched or feel even more awkward than he already did.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I need to talk with Katy about all this,” his mother pressed her hands together, apparently now having sided with giddiness. Lucas now worried what the two of them would get up to together, though he left well enough alone for now.</p><p> </p><p>He went and texted Maya, letting her know he’d told his parents before asking if he could call her. After that, he got around to his homework before dinner would be ready. As they ate, he thought about that morning, how nervous he’d been… how they’d <em>both</em> been nervous, really. Tomorrow would be even better, something he went and texted her. She hadn’t written back yet, so he guessed she hadn’t gotten the chance to talk yet. When she finally wrote back to say he could call, he went right ahead and did so.</p><p> </p><p>“So, did it go okay with your mom?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, yeah… a little weird in some places… a bit weirder in others, but all in all, I’d say it went very well. You?”</p><p> </p><p>“My dad was pretty okay about it, maybe passing secret messages I could have done without, but still. And my mom said she’d call your mom like she wanted to make plans already.”</p><p> </p><p>“So more or less exactly like we thought then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Kind of, yeah,” he nodded to himself, smiling despite himself. “Anyway, I’m glad that’s done.”</p><p> </p><p>“Me, too,” she said, then, “Is it weird that I miss you now? Are we <em>that</em> couple?” He could almost see the smile on her face when she said ‘couple;’ maybe they were.</p><p> </p><p>“Well… my bike’s still at your house,” he pointed out. “I could come by really quick and get it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, hey, if you need it this soon, sure,” she told him, which he took to mean ‘yes, please.’</p><p> </p><p>With a call to his parents, he headed off for Maya’s house, only to find her waiting just a bit up her street, the bike at her side.</p><p> </p><p>“Figured I’d save you the Mom Face Off for now,” she explained as he came up to meet her. He was sort of thankful for that. The smiles were back, on both of them, which soon turned to laughs. “You better get going, before she comes and finds you,” she nodded back to the house with a whisper. “See you tomorrow?” He leaned in and kissed her, more than he’d intended to, and assured her he would be there, bright and early.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0291"><h2>291. Their Steps Toward Knowing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, picking Riley up had involved entirely less sneaking around, but then whereas Auggie had helped to hide her presence the day before, this time, he had gone and sold her out on another matter. Upon her coming into the house with Lucas, the boy had revealed aloud how he’d seen the two of them coming up the street holding hands. Maya had closed her eyes, breathing out, when Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews had turned to look at her and Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>Topanga had been her hero right then, foreseeing her husband’s impending reaction. The two of them had just had such a place in her life, but that did go both ways. Maya had a place in theirs, too, something as good as if she’d been one of their own. All of a sudden, Lucas was treated to a hint of what he’d been fearing all along, as his friend’s father and teacher turned a look on him that made him take one short step backward. Maya’s hand had shot backward blind and locked on his arm, stopping him where he stood.</p><p> </p><p>“Breathe, Matthews,” Maya told their teacher, pointing at him in so commanding a way she might have been called on it had they been in school. “Okay?” He still looked uneasy, looking back at Lucas like he would do best not to hurt her in the least, so Maya just smiled. “Alright, and on that note, see you at school,” she nodded, and she headed out of the house, Lucas following and Riley joining them a moment later. As they started off, the three of them together, she laughed.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they made it to school, it seemed the previous day’s covertness was officially on the outs. For one thing, they had gone up and through those doors stuck together in such a way that it couldn’t have been any clearer they were together. Already though, a few of them had been talking, having seen the two of them in or out of school the day before.</p><p> </p><p>“Well they’re curious,” Lucas shrugged. “They’ll get over it.” He wasn’t worrying himself over it, so she wasn’t going to do it either.</p><p> </p><p>People knew about them now; they were a thing. Maya almost found that stranger than anything else. In the span of a day, they weren’t the same people everyone had known before, they were… ‘Maya and Lucas’… She couldn’t say what that would mean in the long run, but hey… she kind of wanted to find out. They had a long while to wait before they got to go on their first date, so they would have been boyfriend and girlfriend for eleven days… That seemed like their number right there… 11<sup>th</sup> day of the 11<sup>th</sup> month… It could not come fast enough.</p><p> </p><p>Morning was as morning was, one class after another, side by side or off doing their own thing, but sooner or later back together around their table in the cafeteria. Maya hadn’t been sure how it would go, all of them together, after she and Lucas had started their relationship. After Zay and Nadine had started to date, it had taken the others a while to adjust to it, to act like it was normal.</p><p> </p><p>So far, they’d had none of that. None of the others reacted in any way out of sorts for seeing them do anything more… couple like. It wasn’t as though she needed or wanted that from them, but she did sort of wonder why that was. Had seeing Zay and Nadine together all this time made things easier, or did they just expect it already? Had she and Lucas been so obvious all this time?</p><p> </p><p>“So how do you think this is going to go?” Lucas asked her as they started on their way to history class.</p><p> </p><p>“Honestly, I don’t even know, he could be fine…” she shrugged. He looked at her. “Yeah, no, it’s going to be Weird Hour.”</p><p> </p><p>It started off simple enough. Mr. Matthews came into class, started his lesson… After a while, Maya saw Lucas turn to look at her, out of the corner of her eye. She looked at him, and he nodded to the front of the class. She looked there and found their teacher had a face on him that just felt sort of antsy. He would look their way every so often as he spoke, and she wasn’t entirely sure he knew what he was saying anymore.</p><p> </p><p>By the time class ended, the entire room looked a bit confused and Riley had to go and pull her father into the hall for a talk, while everyone hurried off to their other classes. Maya, Lucas, all of them waited for Riley where they could.</p><p> </p><p>“That was a wild ride,” Dylan chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>“The dude lost it,” Zay shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>“All because you guys are going together now?” Nadine couldn’t believe it.</p><p> </p><p>“He… cares a lot?” Maya didn’t know how else to put it. It was true, that much was the absolute truth. “Some might say a <em>little</em> too much.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s probably realizing it won’t be long before it’s Riley’s turn to bring home a special someone,” Asher spoke dramatically, getting a chuckle and half shove from Lucas. “Dads’ worst nightmare…”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re lucky hers lives so far away,” Nadine told Lucas, and Maya felt a twinge of a smile, thinking how Nadine had so smoothly referred to Shawn as her father, when she had still not managed to do it herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t spook him, come on,” she begged, grinning.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0292"><h2>292. Their Steps Toward Becoming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The week had ended, seeming to fly past since Tuesday. Both Maya and Lucas still went along riding that sort of happy cloud. If something unpleasant happened around them, honestly, they couldn’t feel its touch. Maybe for that reason, as they left school on Friday afternoon, she turned to him with a question. They couldn’t have their date on Saturday because some family members were coming down to Austin, and he had to be there. So, she asked what time they were due to arrive. When he said around lunch time, that decided it.</p><p> </p><p>“Think I could come over and hang out tomorrow morning?” He had to know what she was getting at. Both of them had told their parents, but neither of them had gone and seen each other’s parents yet. Maya was ready to go and see the Friars.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, yeah,” he blinked. When she asked if he was nervous, he shrugged. “For me, no. For you…”</p><p> </p><p>“Please, your parents love me.”</p><p> </p><p>And she was not wrong. Later, as she’d been on babysitting duty with Sara, she’d received a text. Lucas was asking her if she could be there at breakfast, his parents’ invitation.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, bright and early, she was off to the Friars’. She had debated whether to dress normal or not, so she’d landed somewhere in the middle with a simple dress. She took off, telling her mother that she was headed to see Lucas, though she left out the part about ‘meeting’ the parents. When she got to the house, Mr. Friar was outside, cleaning his car. He saw her coming and stood up to come and say hello.</p><p> </p><p>What little anxiety she might have had was pushed aside when she saw the smile on the man’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning,” he greeted her, and she smiled back. “Now I gotta say something, and I need you to promise to forgive this moment of… sentimentality, and not let it put any pressure on you.” Maya hesitated, then nodded. “I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather see as my Luke’s girl,” he stated, then, even as Maya was already smiling, “Not that there could have been. I do see how he thinks the world of you.” Now she was wrestling to keep that smile from taking complete control. “Alright, let’s get you inside, just remember, Melinda thinks much the same, even if her ways of expressing it are a bit…”</p><p> </p><p>“Extravagant?” Maya offered.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, let’s go with that one,” Mr. Friar gave her shoulder a pat before leading her into the house. She couldn’t explain how thankful she was for this brief encounter. Before, as she’d been coming along, all she could think was how, for the countless times she’d been in this house, today sort of felt like the first time again. Having talked to Mr. Friar, it all sort of felt like the familiarity had been returned to her.</p><p> </p><p>Maya barely got to set her eyes on Lucas, coming down from upstairs, before his mother stepped out of the kitchen, having heard the door, and guessed their breakfast guest had arrived. As always, she seemed to walk around in perpetual hostess mode, although this morning she might have looked more personal than Maya had seen her before.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, Maya, here you are, oh don’t you look sweet, come here,” Melinda approached and, much to Maya’s surprise, pulled her into a hug. Locked in as she was, she could just barely see Lucas over his mother’s shoulder, stifling a laugh. She gave him a look that must have translated like ‘help.’</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, hey, let her breathe,” he stepped in.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, yes,” Mrs. Friar stood back, and Maya took a breath. “Oh, look at you,” Mrs. Friar laid one hand on to Maya’s arm, the other to her son’s, looking from one to the other and back like she might happily weep. “Well come along, breakfast is almost ready, I hope you brought your appetite.” And just like that, Hurricane Mel was off.</p><p> </p><p>“You alright?” Lucas turned to Maya as his father followed into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Well she didn’t crack any ribs,” Maya joked. “But yes, everything’s great,” she promised with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>And it really was. After all this time, she felt like she was really getting to know Lucas’ mother. Like her own mother, Melinda Friar could get a bit over the top, but once you got to see what was under all that, you understood where it came from… and maybe you sort of liked that it was that way.</p><p> </p><p>Breakfast had been great. Mrs. Friar had always been an excellent cook, and her pancakes could put anyone to shame. When Maya had declared as much, the smile on the woman’s face made her certain that the next hug just might be a bone crusher.</p><p> </p><p>Too soon already, the morning had come to an end. Maya would head home before the family could start to arrive. Much as Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar would have been glad to introduce her, it seemed like a lot to happen in one day, especially since they had only been together for a few days and hadn’t gone out on their date yet. Still, as she left, Maya told Lucas he could expect a similar invitation from <em>her</em> mother the moment she found out about this breakfast.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0293"><h2>293. Their Steps Toward Changing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As predicted, come Sunday morning, Lucas had received a text stating he was to come a bit earlier than usual the next morning, to have breakfast with Maya and her mother. If he was in any way apprehensive on the matter, he tried not to show. And even then… Maya had done it, just the day before, and it had been perfect. It was only Maya’s mother; it would be fine.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, he made his way to Maya’s house, confidence on high. Then as he neared, he saw someone climb from the window on the side of the house and wave him over. He went and came to stand with Maya, who spoke quickly before scampering back through her window. Lucas watched her go, his nerves making a resurgence over what she’d just informed him of: it <em>wouldn’t</em> be just the three of them. There would be seven of them. The Matthews were here, too.</p><p> </p><p>Things had gone fairly back to normal in the days following Mr. Matthews’ discovery that he and Maya were now together. He would still have a bit of that eagle-eyed dad thing going, but all in all… Now there was this breakfast, and Lucas really couldn’t say what he anticipated this moment to turn into, with three adults who were so fiercely protective of Maya. Couldn’t they see how protective <em>he</em> was of her, too? He’d never let her get hurt, in any way, if he could help it. He’d thought it was clear, but maybe he needed to tell them and be sure.</p><p> </p><p>For her sneak warning, he hadn’t expected Maya to be the one to answer the door, but then there she was, smiling at him like he might have been better off running away.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he spoke, seeing the others not far behind her. “Morning,” he nodded to all of them as he came in.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning, Lucas,” Maya’s mother swept in. “You know, it’s a wonder we haven’t seen more of each other with you picking Maya up every morning the way you’ve been doing the last few weeks…” She got a look from Maya at this and she cleared her throat. “Glad to have you over, come on, take a seat, you must be hungry.”</p><p> </p><p>So, they all sat. It wouldn’t be until later that he found out just how they’d ended up with this expanded presence. Maya had told Riley about the breakfast invitation, and Riley had been overheard by her father, which had led to her mother knowing, her mother mentioning it to <em>Maya’s</em> mother, and then here they were. It would explain the sort of apologetic look Riley had on her face all through breakfast and until the three of them took off for school.</p><p> </p><p>“So, we didn’t get to hear how all this happened with you two,” Topanga asked as they all started eating. Lucas turned to Maya, unsure what she might or might not want to say or keep to themselves.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s just…” she started to say, then paused; she couldn’t say any more than he did, could she? They’d all done their telling already, but now…</p><p> </p><p>“We took our time,” he jumped in. “We didn’t want to rush in, we wanted to do it right, being together and all. It’s not like we’d had anything like this before. I can’t speak for Maya, but I knew… I wanted to do right by her, and if that meant waiting all those months, then I was going to do it.” There was no arguing on that. Maya smiled at him from across the table, and that was the only thing he needed to see, though he could also see the rest of them sat around the table – even Mr. Matthews – looked at him now maybe like they could see they really had nothing to worry about.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell you what, Huckleberry was in full force back there,” Maya told him after the two of them and Riley took off for school. “That was really good.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I meant it,” he nodded as Maya took his hand. “Think it went alright with your mom?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, definitely. You passed, flying colors and all.”</p><p> </p><p>“And…” he gestured toward Riley, “Your dad?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, he’s fine,” Riley shrugged. “He doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on, I mean I told you guys about him and my mom when they were our age…” Maya laughed at that, nodding assent.</p><p> </p><p>“Few more days until The Date,” Maya pointed out as they neared school. “Do you know what you want to do yet? Or do we both decide?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to decide together, or…”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, can leave it up to you, too.” He couldn’t say for sure. The fact was he’d spent the last week trying to think of what they might do. “Hey, I trust you,” she pointed out. He nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Then I’ll surprise you,” he declared.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, but if I need to dress in consequence you need to tell me ahead of time.”</p><p> </p><p>“No chance I’d forget,” Lucas promised, kissing her quickly before they walked into school. Four days to Friday, to their date… He could barely believe it had been a week since the haunted house.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0294"><h2>294. Their Steps Toward the Date</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After the day of the second breakfast, the rest of the week had managed to be uneventful without dragging on, which might have had to do with what they knew would be coming at the end of that week. It was Thursday night now, which meant they had only one day of school left before The Date. The capital letters seemed present even when they thought of it, which could be so great a thing as it could be nerve-wracking. Maybe for that reason, when Maya had called him, his hand had already been on its way to reach for <em>his </em>phone, with the intent to call her.</p><p> </p><p>“Thinking about tomorrow?” he asked by way of greeting, and the sound of confirmation she gave made him smile. A lot of things she did would do that to him, though he hadn’t dared show it before. He didn’t know that he’d ever smiled so much as he’d done in the past ten days.</p><p> </p><p>“A moment ago, it was so far away, and now it’s… tomorrow,” she told him. “We’ve been together for ten days…”</p><p> </p><p>“Any complaints so far?” He could just see the smirk grow on to her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, let’s see,” she pondered. “Thinking… Thinking… Nope, not really, no. Clean bill of boyfriending. How about me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’d say you’re the best girlfriend I’ve had, but seeing as that’s because you’re the only one I’ve had, that doesn’t really say much. I <em>can</em> say… I don’t see how I could ever want any other.”</p><p> </p><p>“Bold words, wow,” Maya replied, though he could see she’d be smiling bright, over in her own house. “Can I change my answer to that, too?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” he told her, knowing she genuinely felt it.</p><p> </p><p>“So I am running out of time on trying to get you to spill the beans on your plans for tomorrow, aren’t I?” she asked him with innocence that would have fooled no one, even face to face.</p><p> </p><p>“You know I won’t say it, but I like watching you try,” he revealed with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s good, because see, today I <em>happened</em> to be left with <em>your</em> bag in my custody, I mean it was right there, no one else around, I <em>could </em>have seen something in there…”</p><p> </p><p>“Could you now?” he played along.</p><p> </p><p>“I could indeed, fair Huckleberry.” He knew on good authority that there had been nothing in that bag that had anything to do with her <em>or</em> the date, so if she <em>had</em> looked into his bag – which he didn’t mind in the least – then she had nothing, and she was fishing for information, as she had announced. But he was curious to see where she would take this.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what did you see?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well books, mostly. But also… notes.”</p><p> </p><p>“You see me as the note-taking type?” he asked, turning to his desk, and his notes. “About a date?”</p><p> </p><p>“I see a lot of things about you, yes. Those were some really interesting things you had written up there, at the top of that page, you know the one…”</p><p> </p><p>“You honestly expect me to answer that one?” he asked with a laugh. “There were no notes in that bag.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, but there <em>were</em> some in your room, weren’t there?”</p><p> </p><p>Okay, <em>now</em> she was making him doubt. She <em>had</em> been here the day before, they all had. They’d done their homework, they’d hung out… She hadn’t been on her own at any time, had she?</p><p> </p><p>“No, there weren’t,” he tried to sound convincing.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, that was too easy,” she laughed. “Relax, I didn’t see anything, I promise, I swear it… on your head. You don’t think I’d want anything bad happening to you if I was lying, do you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I trust you,” he nodded to himself, though he did quietly gather up his notes and hide them, as though she could see him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m just excited, that’s all, and excited tends to turn into curious, and that can go wrong <em>so</em> fast,” she confessed.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you pick out an outfit yet?” he asked, remembering how she’d wanted to know what she was meant to go for on this. The impression it left him with, coupled with past instances, was that she put more attention into something like this than she’d care to let on.</p><p> </p><p>“There has been some debate,” she informed him. “I <em>will</em> make up my mind before you show up… That’s, of course, if Riley doesn’t barge in here with arms full of <em>her</em> clothes. Honestly, I’m a little scared I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and she’ll be right there… brushing my hair or painting my nails or something. You don’t have <em>that</em> to think about.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, but I do have Zay, with his year and a half of ‘experience’ and my grandfather with his advice, and, you know… my mother,” he reminded her, and she chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>“Well when you put it like that… Anyway, I’m locking the windows tonight,” she joked. “See you in the morning?”</p><p> </p><p>“Right on time,” he confirmed.</p><p> </p><p>After they’d hung up, he waited a moment before digging out his notes again. He was trying to go into this as casually as possible, except how could he even do that? Days ago, his head had been spinning with ideas, and questions, and that was what had led him to start writing it down, to get it out of his head in some form that wouldn’t all feel like a mess. The problem after a while became that he had too many ideas, like for almost a year now, somewhere in the back of his mind, these ideas had been building up unbeknownst to him. And now they all wanted out. He might have had enough for twenty dates in there.</p><p> </p><p>Only which one was he to do first, for this first date? Go big? Go small? Not small, but kind of simple at least? In his head it felt like he should be going big, because that was what it was. After all this time, they were finally going out on a date, and that may have been the biggest thing to happen to him that didn’t have to do with school, or family… it was about him, and the girl he had the privilege to call his girlfriend. How much bigger could it get right now?</p><p> </p><p>But if he went too big, wouldn’t that mean he’d have to top it, again and again? This was where all his ideas had started to feel jumbled again…</p><p> </p><p>He’d figured out his plan, eventually, and he had promised himself too much. He had not been so nervous about anything, not like this, not for good things.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually the notes had gone away, and he’d gone to bed. Tomorrow night he had a date with Maya Hart. That was all he needed to remember, not the plans, not the worries or the nerves, none of it. All he had to think about was her… him and her… This would be good. They’d done their waiting, and now it was time to take the next step.</p><p> </p><p>It might have sounded weird, but it was sort of reassuring to him to know that, off in her room, she was just as nervous as he was. Maybe she’d know and be reassured, too.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0295"><h2>295. Their Night to Dress Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Friday at school had felt like an exercise in patience and how little of it she had. Classes felt endless, and all along she went on with a singular thought rolling through her head… getting home, getting ready… It was bad enough she had gym <em>and</em> practice at the end of the day, and she’d have to shower that excessive sweat off of her before she could even begin to get herself set. As soon as practice had been done, she’d grabbed Riley and Nadine and hurried them home with her, even if she knew they’d be rummaging through her closet while she was in the shower.</p><p> </p><p>As expected, she’d re-emerged, mid hair-detangling, to come upon what was looking to be every piece of clothing she owned just piled on her bed and on the floor, like fallen fighters defeated by the pair now digging through jewelry.</p><p> </p><p>“You redecorated…” Maya declared, and they snapped to attention, turning back to her. She would not mention how a similar scene had unfolded the night before as she’d been talking to Lucas, left there until she’d woken up in the morning and put it all back before anyone could see.</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t made up her mind on what she’d wear tonight before, and the odds that she’d manage to figure it out now felt stacked up against her. She was starting to regret going against her mother’s offer to get something new. Maybe it was some remnant of days when it would have been out of the question.</p><p> </p><p>“Any contenders?” she asked her friends, hopeful.</p><p> </p><p>“I said to go with that blue and white dress,” offered a familiar steady voice, and Maya looked around in surprise until she spotted the phone propped up and displaying the face of Isadora Smackle. It was unexpected, but only for how it felt even better to have her there… She deserved to be there, too.</p><p> </p><p>“This one?” Nadine dug it out of the pile so deftly that it showed an amount of organization in this mess she never would have seen coming. Smackle confirmed that was her pick. Nadine and Riley inspected it, looked back to Maya, to the dress again.</p><p> </p><p>“Put it on,” Riley demanded, holding the dress out. There was no arguing against them now, so Maya complied, dressing up in the chosen outfit before standing there, hair still half untouched. “Maybe…” Riley declared, with a similar reply from Nadine.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, what do you think?” Smackle asked, and Maya moved to be able to look at herself. It was definitely one of her best ones… Actually, now that she thought about it, she didn’t believe Lucas had seen this one yet… and that settled the matter. She had her dress, now the rest could fall into place.</p><p> </p><p>“No, hey, no brush for you,” Maya backed away from Riley. “You don’t know your own strength when it’s not your hair.”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s got a point there,” Nadine had to admit, and soon, much as it frustrated her, so did Riley. So, Nadine was put in charge of hair and makeup while Riley sorted out accessories and shoes. It felt now like they were all contributing something, and for how frazzled she felt at the moment, Maya couldn’t have been more thankful.</p><p> </p><p>Her hair, under Nadine’s fine-handed care, had become a far cry from the mess it had been before and after her shower. Nadine had pulled it into some kind of braided up do that sort of made her wonder where her friend had learned to do anything like that.</p><p> </p><p>“Asher and Joey’s cousin’s a hairdresser, remember? When I was going to go out with Zay the first time, I asked her to help, and after that I asked her to show me more,” Nadine explained with a shrug and a smirk. “Do you like it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Maya breathed out, smiling. She was finally starting to feel it, like the chaos was pulling away to remind her what would be happening that night.</p><p> </p><p>After that, everything else came together in a blink. Before she knew it, she was as ready as she could ever expect to be. Riley, Nadine, Smackle, each of them looked at her like accomplished fairy godmothers but also like proud friends, and Maya had thanked them deeply.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” her mother’s voice came to the room, and when Maya turned, her mother looked like she might have had the breath knocked out of her. When Maya asked if she was alright, her mother smiled. “Couldn’t be better; you just look…” she couldn’t even find the words, and Maya moved to hug her. “You have a wonderful time tonight, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“I will,” Maya promised… wished…</p><p> </p><p>Almost on cue, the doorbell rang, and they all froze where they stood. Maya asked whether <em>she</em> should answer the door or not, and Nadine took off, Riley on her heels, carrying her phone/Smackle with her. So that answered that.</p><p> </p><p>She stood in her room for a beat, breathing in, out… No big deal, right? Just a date… with Lucas… But they were friends, best friends… boyfriend and girlfriend… What did she have to worry over? Her hands travelled a quick last check before she went out to meet her date.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0296"><h2>296. Their Night to Collect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas didn’t know that he’d put this much thought into the way he looked for anything that didn’t involve some big event to attend with his family, and even then… It was the first time he was conscious of dressing, essentially, for the benefit of one person, one… one incredibly special person. His father had helped him, after convincing his mother that it would be better that way.</p><p> </p><p>He had come out on the other side, he thought, looking very much the way he hoped he was meant to look. Then he’d come downstairs and his mother had gotten all misty-eyed and he guessed that was a good sign, so off he went. By the time he came up to Maya’s house and rang the bell, he felt his heart would just break through his chest if it kept up the way it did, and he hadn’t even seen her yet…</p><p> </p><p>When he did, after being greeted by three of his friends – two live and one on screen – in a relentlessly amused sort of way over the way he looked, he knew his estimation had not been unsound. She looked beautiful, any day of the week, even after gym class and basketball practice, but now…</p><p> </p><p>“Woah…” the sound came freely when he took in all that he saw. Then he heard himself and blinked back to his senses, taking a few steps forward as she did, too.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah to you, too,” she spoke with a beam of a smile. “Would almost feel weird calling you Huckleberry dressed like that,” she added, before turning to her mother and the other girls. “And good night to you,” she tipped her head, then, “Well you guys, I mean… Mom, see you later, be back on time, I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had nodded wordlessly, the girls had wished them a good night, and they were off. Lucas had offered out his arm to lead her off, and Maya had taken it with an anxious smile. No more anticipating; they had made it at last.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I tell you, I half expected you to show up with a hat, you know?” she gestured the tipping of said invisible hat, and he laughed. “Kind of glad you didn’t, though, in the future, I wouldn’t be opposed to it either…”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied as they walked on together down the street.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I know where we’re going now?” she asked, and he shook his head. “But we’re on The Date now, and I’ve been patient, so, so very patient.”</p><p> </p><p>“You? Patient?” he laughed. “How many times did you try and get me to talk in the last week?” he asked, as she adopted an air of cautious innocence.</p><p> </p><p>“There may have been a few,” she allowed.</p><p> </p><p>“A few?” he pressed on, and she scrunched up her face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But you will find out soon, just gotta hang in there a little while longer, and besides… it’s just us, walking, talking… You can make it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know… it’s just fun messing around with you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then by all means, Miss Hart, mess away.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not in this dress I’m not, I’m being all fancy,” she scoffed, immediately betrayed by her face, which broke into a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“I like you fancy like this…” he declared, then, “I like you messy, too, but fancy’s good for now, it’s… it’s really good…” He had to wonder, this feeling he had now, looking at her, if it was anything like that one <em>she’d</em> get, the one that would send her wanting to grab sketchbook and pencil to immortalize it. He knew for sure he wasn’t planning on forgetting any of this.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well it would be a real shame if you didn’t get to see it sitting in… the dark?” she stared at him, pointedly, fishing for answers again and grinning.</p><p> </p><p>“Not telling,” he shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Right…” she inspected his face. “So maybe not a movie then, alright…”</p><p> </p><p>“Just wait, come on,” he begged, though his smile was stuck still. Maya moved in front of him, walking backwards.</p><p> </p><p>“But it’s so fun when your face goes all ‘oh no, she knows…’ and I can’t help it if I want to see it.”</p><p> </p><p>“And if you don’t watch where you’re going, you are going to fall real soon, then you’ll see my ‘oh no, she’s hurt’ face, and no one wants to see that.” She sighed, relenting to return to forward walking, though she did get hold of his arm again, and the walk carried on.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean I <em>do</em> want to be surprised,” she promised.</p><p> </p><p>“I know you do, you’ve told me,” he nodded. “And you will be… hopefully…” He was still so nervous. He felt confident she would love what he’d picked out for them today, but he still would be concerned that she might feel it wasn’t special enough, not for the first date… But then he’d see her there, walking with him, feel the excitement coming off of her, and he didn’t see why he had anything to worry over.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0297"><h2>297. Their Night to Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had followed the progress of their movement away from her house and toward their mystery location like some detective on the prowl. Where was he taking them, what would they be doing once they got there? The wait was already keeping her on her toes, and she liked that?</p><p> </p><p>When they’d reached the edge of the park, he’d turned them on to the path which they’d often use to cut across rather than to circle the whole area. It took a while for her to realize that wasn’t their destination; <em>this</em> was. At first, she’d only caught sight, out of the corner of her eye, of someone who looked an awful lot like one Dylan Orlando, dashing toward them.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing here?” Maya barely had time to ask before their friend deposited something in front of Lucas before taking off again at a run. Maya watched him go, turning back now to find Lucas had picked up the item and started diverting them out on to the grass. “What’s that?” she asked, but then she could see something further along and the surprises continued.</p><p> </p><p>There were Asher and Zay, stood in the middle of what they referred to as the Quiet View. Many times, in the past two years they’d all come and sat here. She would always remember the first time she’d come here, with them, the Saturday they’d showed her around the area. It had quickly become one of her favorite places to be at, and she always felt sort of inspired sitting here.</p><p> </p><p>“And this is our cue to leave,” Asher nodded to the both of them, pulling Zay along. “You look crazy great by the way,” he tapped Maya’s arm as they went.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks?” she replied, still confused about what was going on. Then she looked down and saw what it was that Dylan had brought over. It was a basket, the blanket lifted from it now being placed over the grass and letting the scent of food escape.</p><p> </p><p>“Had to make sure no one came and sat here before we showed up,” Lucas explained, turning back to her. “I wasn’t sure if it would work out, but the weather was warm enough, so…” he looked at the picnic set up, then back to her. “I figured, I know how much you like it here, so…”</p><p> </p><p>“So, what are we waiting for,” she smiled, so he wouldn’t look so nervous anymore.</p><p> </p><p>They sat there on the blanket, which, considering her dress, was absolutely appreciated. When she got a look at what he had in his basket, she smiled even more. As it turned out, he had more than those three boys in on this. She was quick to spot out items she recognized, from one relative or another of their friends, right down to the infamous GiGi cookies.</p><p> </p><p>“What… How did you…” she was stunned, and that look of genuine surprise might have been the best thing he could have asked for. “What did you do?”</p><p> </p><p>“Took a page out of Asher’s book,” he shrugged. “You know, connections. I told them what I wanted to do, asked if they could help… They said yes. Joey and Rebecca went around to get everything after school was out, they didn’t have basketball practice, and I knew I couldn’t ask Riley or you might know, so… Oh, and there’s this,” he reached to the bottom of the basket. “Delivery from one Farkle Minkus, for a touch of New York.” She gasped just seeing the box, and she stared at it for a while. “You okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Everybody helped,” she pointed out. “All our friends, they all did something for this.” He thought back, and he realized she was right. She looked so touched by it, and she took a little more of his nervousness away with that look in her eyes. “Alright, well let’s eat,” she smiled back at him.</p><p> </p><p>So, they got to eating, splitting up the various offerings as best they could. Each one seemed to bring out a new memory of the first time they’d each had it. The food just carried the conversation, keeping them both in high spirits. It was everything they could have asked for, like a dream they didn’t dare hope could ever become reality, though it had. Lucas knew what was to come next, after they’d finished eating, and he wanted to get to that part, too, but honestly he could have spent this whole date sitting here with Maya Hart, talking about the food provided for them. She looked so happy, and that was all he’d ever wanted. He doubted she was even thinking about the other things they might be doing later either.</p><p> </p><p>“So maybe I could plan the next one, if that’s alright?” Maya suggested.</p><p> </p><p>“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked, and she shrugged. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got. Now <em>I</em> get to pry for information.” She laughed. “What, I can do it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, you can,” Maya nodded, sounding more as though she was indulging him. “Steel trap, right here,” she pointed to herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, what if I have the key?” he asked, and she looked back at him, faced with this possibility.</p><p> </p><p>“Then I’m sure you’d know what to do and <em>not </em>do with it.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0298"><h2>298. Their Night to Storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maybe if they hadn’t been so caught up in each other they might have seen what was coming, instead of being surprised by the first drop of rain, and the second, the next several few… several many… They had looked to the sky, seen how dark it was, then the grumbling thunder, and then… lightning in the distance. By then they had been forced out of their idyll, to their feet, the better to hurry and push everything into the basket and run for cover.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they could start moving out of the park, there was not a part of them left that was dry, and the skies looked like a constant and uninterrupted wall of rain.</p><p> </p><p>“What do we do?” Maya shouted over the howl of wind and rain and thunder. She could barely see, with rain in her eyes, and she tried not to lose sight of him. “The bus stop?”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he nodded, as hyper as she was. Taken by the same concerns, he’d reached for her hand, finding her arm first. Once his fingers locked around hers, they took off again, in what could only be the general direction of the bus stop and the shelter to be found there.</p><p> </p><p>“There it is!” she called, and they hurried on, Maya almost tripping over her shoes but regaining balance in time. When they finally reached the shelter, they came to a stop, out of breath and trying hard to recover it. Maya dropped to one of the seats, wondering if she would ever breathe again.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” Lucas asked, the basket dropping at his feet as he sat next to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Feel like a… drowned rat… can’t breathe… freezing… heart crazy… feet hurt… How <em>you</em> doing?”</p><p> </p><p>“Same,” he simply nodded, moving to take off his jacket to let her have it, soaked as it was, but she shook her head at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Appreciate the gesture… but guess what… Huckleberry… Don’t want you to freeze either. Keep it.”</p><p> </p><p>“So, I’m Huckleberry again?”</p><p> </p><p>“Have you seen you?” she pointed at him, even if right about now he looked straight out of some cowboy romance novel cover. “And me, for that matter,” she looked to her dress, didn’t dare imagine what her hair and her face must have looked like. She was all for a mess, but she hadn’t wanted to be one tonight. She was near certain she wasn’t far from some embarrassing tears. Her breathing was starting to settle, his, too, but now she had a stitch in her side, and she felt heavy, weighed down by the rain and the storm. “We can’t stay here…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he bowed his head, knowing the moment had to have been coming, with this change of circumstances. “I can call my dad, he can get us, drive you home.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she looked at him. “No, no, no, no way. Just because the sky’s gone berserk, and I’m kind of hurting all over, for real, we <em>just</em> ate,” she winced. “Anyway, this is still our date, and I’ll be damned if I let <em>water</em> stop us, okay?” she held out her hand.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas smiled, never so glad to see that fire still in her eyes, and rather than shake on it, he leaned in and they kissed on it.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, this can’t be good with being all out of breath and everything,” she pointed out. He looked back at her. “Just saying,” she gestured, which he took to mean ‘so what,’ so he smirked and kissed her again. “Getting better…” He kissed her again. “Air in my lungs, what a miracle,” she laughed, and they kissed again.</p><p> </p><p>They were interrupted by a light, which they looked up to find belonged to a bus. It took Lucas only a moment to realize which bus it was and remember they were supposed to take it.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” he took her hand, and they ran out of the shelter, back into the rain for the time it took to get them on to the bus and into a seat. When she asked where they were going and all he’d say was that she would see, she gave a sigh, lifted up his arm and leaned against him until his arm was around her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, I surrender to your plans,” she declared. “So long as we get to be on this bus long enough to warm up a bit?” she looked up at him. He resettled a bit, giving her arm a rub to warm it up.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ve got time,” he assured her, then looking at her again, “Not going to fall asleep, are you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you kidding? I’m not missing a minute of this. And if I fall asleep, how will I pester you with questions to figure out where we’re going? Not that it worked with the picnic or… what?” His face had changed all of a sudden.</p><p> </p><p>“I left the basket at the bus stop,” he explained. “The bus came, we ran…”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not going back for it,” she shook her head, looking out the window where it was still raining hard.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0299"><h2>299. Their Night to Try</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It seemed neither Lucas nor Maya could see what they looked like after their mad dash through the rain. Maybe it was the blinders of feelings, of seeing how the other looked at them like they were the most gloriously shining thing in the world that kept them from seeing how it might play against them.</p><p> </p><p>Now, as they sat dejectedly outside the museum, it had grown just a bit clearer.</p><p> </p><p>She’d figured out where they were going as they neared their stop, and when she had, she’d sat up from her post against his shoulder to look outside the window with the quick eagerness of a puppy. They were at the museum, the one they’d gone to the day of the field trip, running from the others, looking for weird stuff… There was a new exhibit, she’d been wanting to go, and now here they were.</p><p> </p><p>Getting off the bus had meant another dash through the rain, made somewhat more of an issue now that they had had the chance to dry up some, but there was no way around it, so off they’d gone, making it across the lot and through the doors with some relief. Now they could dry up proper, all the while taking in some art… maybe they <em>would</em> call in for a ride home after.</p><p> </p><p>They never made it as far as the ticket counter. A security guard took one look at the two of them and came up to stand in their way, asking them to leave.</p><p> </p><p>They pleaded their case for several minutes, explaining they were on their first date, which really should have been self-evident by their clothes, as much as the storm had disturbed their overall appearances. They explained how they had been caught in the storm, which had kept them from making it there looking intact, but that they really just wanted to see the exhibit, and that the museum itself meant so much to the two of them as a couple.</p><p> </p><p>The guard had been in no way touched by this. He asked them to leave one more time, <em>this</em> time with a tone that said, ‘go or I’ll <em>make</em> you go.’ That had not deterred Maya, and she had stared down the man, who might have been a solid foot taller than her, like <em>she</em> was the one who was over six feet tall. He took one step forward and the two of them had moved away at once, making a collective decision to just leave.</p><p> </p><p>So now here they were, sitting on a bench in the one spot more or less spared by the rain, feeling the disappointment of what had just happened now weighing on them. They had sprung back so well from the sudden downpour, but now… now they felt it pressing into the ‘bad’ column along with the museum flop, until everything that had come before started to feel like it could not possibly have happened, not that day.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had half a mind to go back in there and make a scene, ask to see a manager, an owner, customer service, someone… She might have done it, too, except this was supposed to be The Date, and it felt valuable enough that tempting fate and the possibility that she might make it worse was just not something she was willing to do. Things were already bad enough as they were.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had had much the same idea, to just climb back into the fight, not to give up. They had come so far for this night, and no way was a storm going to ruin it, a storm, or a security guard. He didn’t know Maya, not like he did. If he did, he would have stepped right aside, he would have… or he wouldn’t, and then their night would end with trouble neither of them deserved.</p><p> </p><p>They were mad at the situation, both of them, but also just sad… Was this what their memory of this date would turn into? Could they save it, somehow? If they did nothing, if they sat here and did nothing else, then yes, that was what it would turn into, the cement would set, final image, done. Two kids sitting with frowns on their faces, shoulders slumped.</p><p> </p><p>The storm was not looking in any way willing to let up. If anything, it was getting worse, the lightning making the evening sky bright but also sort of spooky.</p><p> </p><p>Maya was the one to stand first, moving not to the door but to a vending machine near it. Soon after, she returned with two cans and a bag of chips. One can was handed to Lucas, who mumbled thanks and took it, popping it open. Maya dropped in next to him, opening her own can and holding it up. He struck hers with his own and they took a drink. The bag of chips was opened and kept between them where they could both reach in.</p><p> </p><p>They sat there for a while, drinking, eating. Neither of them was ready to say or do anything else, no solution coming to them, because really, all they saw in their future was more disappointment.</p><p> </p><p>“Am I going to say it, or are you?” Maya eventually said, when the snack had been spent.</p><p> </p><p>“I… don’t want to,” he frowned.</p><p> </p><p>“We have to… we have to. I don’t want to say it, but I have to… There’s a chip stuck to your face.” He blinked, and then he laughed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0300"><h2>300. Their Night to Reflect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What do we do now?” Lucas finally asked. Maya looked up at the sky for a beat, before moving closer to him, linking her arm with his. He was here, she was here… She was tired… But they were here… their first date… She couldn’t make herself go, like if she did, if either of them did, it would be throwing in the towel…</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’m getting this down, for one,” she started reaching up to find the pins in her hair. When he made a little sound like he didn’t want her to, she turned back to him. “I just know it doesn’t look like it did when we left the house, and if I got it down I might… feel a bit more normal,” she explained. He gave a small nod.</p><p> </p><p>“Need a hand?” he offered.</p><p> </p><p>So, with his help, nervous as he was at potentially pulling her hair, the intricate hairdo came apart, leaving in its place a mass of waves and curls of blond she shook out and swept back with a breath of relief.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s one thing fixed… Now… this…” she circled her finger in the air to indicate the museum, the date… “I could go back in there, he might not recognize me?” she tried, then frowning at the silliness of her own idea, “I’m officially losing it, right? The rain gave me a fever, that’s it.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can’t go back in there,” he stated. “Storm’s not letting off… no chance of going anywhere else. I’ll call my dad…” She looked at him, eyes bordering on pleading. ‘Don’t do it,’ they said. “I’m sorry, but the longer we stay here, it won’t get better, it’ll just get worse. Aren’t you cold?”</p><p> </p><p>“No… Yes…” she had to confess, leaning against him for warmth once again, and he gave it at once. “This sucks…” she grumbled. “The storm, not you, not your plans.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know… and you’re right.” She wanted to mention the other bit, the feeling like they’d be giving up, but she didn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“Call your dad,” she bowed her head as he pulled out his phone and made the call.</p><p> </p><p>“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” Lucas told her after hanging up. “So, what do we do until then?” he asked. She sat up, unsure. He had to find something, anything, to get her happy again. He looked at the building, the site of one great and happy memory and one small unpleasant one, then back to her. He got up, walked step by step until he left the cover of the roof and stood at the mercy of rain again.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” Maya called out to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Looking for weird stuff,” he called back. “Wanna come?”</p><p> </p><p>The thought had to be left to stew in her head before she made up her mind, which could be fine except he was still standing exposed to the rain. But even from where he stood, he swore he could pinpoint the moment where she decided, and it was led by mischief. She stood, stepped forward, into the rain, too, and then, with a wave, she took off running through the museum grounds. The message was clear: catch me if you can.</p><p> </p><p>When Mr. Friar arrived, having parked on the street and walked the rest of the way, umbrella in hand and in search of his son and his girlfriend, he found them by sound first, precisely by a squeal that made him turn around and spot the girl and boy running through the rain. Whistling with his fingers, he got their attention and they skidded to a stop. He waved them over, and up they came, both flushed and chilled, soaked to the bone.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Dad…”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Mr. Friar…”</p><p> </p><p>He guided them both to the car without a word. Short of getting them to wring out what excess water they could get off themselves, which would likely have been pointless, there was no hope of their not dragging in a lot of water into the car, so they just piled into the backseat.</p><p> </p><p>On the drive back to the Friar house – on Mr. Friar’s insistence, refusing to return Katy Hart a water-logged daughter – the two had relayed the tale of their evening, the good start, great start, and then the rain, and then getting to the museum, only to be refused access, then sitting outside until they had finally called him. And then, well… rain running.</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother is going to have some words with the museum when she hears about this,” he shook his head, and Lucas closed his eyes, remembering his mother’s involvement out there… he could have used that to get them through… maybe…</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the ride was spent with him watching as Maya resisted pressing water out of her hair, knowing where it would end up so long as they were in the car. He also had to think about how this evening would end for them. Had he managed to get things back on track, or had the dark mark of the storm done its damage?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0301"><h2>301. Their Night to Remember</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of course, now that they had left the museum and made for Lucas’ house, the storm had died down and out. By the time they pulled up to the house, the rain had stopped. Lucas and Maya went sloshing up to the door, where they were greeted by both their mothers. It seemed Melinda Friar had called Katy Hart as soon as she’d heard from her husband, and Maya’s mother had rushed over.</p><p> </p><p>Mrs. Friar had towels at the ready for them, while Katy had dry clothes for Maya to change into. Lucas had disappeared off into his room to change, while Maya went up to the bathroom. A few minutes later, a knock at his door ushered in Maya, towel still around her shoulders, the dress over her arm now that she had slipped on the change of clothes.</p><p> </p><p>“Never thought I’d be dry again,” she sighed, putting the dress on the back of his desk chair before reaching up to her hair, still locked in the twists granted by the former hairdo, though now looking to be drying neatly. There was barely any trace of the way she’d looked not so long ago, when he’d picked her up at her house. And still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you feel as exhausted as I do? Feels like I did a hundred laps around the gym or something.” As an answer, she yawned. She sat on the desk chair, careful not to lean on the dress.</p><p> </p><p>“So… The Date… I don’t even know what to say about all of that…” she admitted. He thought about it, too, how could he not?</p><p> </p><p>“Well… what even is a date, really?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his bed, facing her. “Two people who want to spend time together because they care for each other a lot and want to spend more time together and find out more things about each other that they’ll end up liking, too? I did that tonight, with you. It wasn’t how we planned it exactly, but… I had fun, and I’m never going to forget it, are you?” She couldn’t help but smile.</p><p> </p><p>“None of it,” she vowed.</p><p> </p><p>“We did… kind of put a lot of pressure on all this, on ourselves… The Date…” he intoned.</p><p> </p><p>“It was totally some spur of the moment thing, wasn’t it?” she joked, ending on a light smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we totally didn’t have a year on our shoulders,” he followed this with a smile of his own, before moving to pull something from under his mattress. He went and handed her a small stack of sheets. She took one look at the first one and gave a snort and semi-dramatic gasp.</p><p> </p><p>“Your very secret notes? I get to look at them? For real?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just look, okay?” he chuckled. She muttered something that sounded like ‘alright, alright, cool it, cowboy’ under her breath before focusing on the papers for a few quiet minutes. All he heard in that time was the shuffling of paper, the occasional laugh, the occasional ‘ooh’ or ‘aww.’ Mostly it was just more smiling. When she looked up at him again, she was beaming with awe.</p><p> </p><p>“You really put a lot of thought into all this,” she stated.</p><p> </p><p>“Well you’re very inspiring, I guess,” he declared, and she gave a humble sort of brush off. “I still want to do all those things and… so many more… with you. Fancy dresses or jeans and a t-shirt,” he gestured at her present outfit, “Picnics and museums, or a movie right here with a pizza…” She had that smile now, the one she’d get when she’d try and pretend like she didn’t want to smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Now I want pizza,” she mumbled.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked, coming up and crouching in front of her. Her smirk came loose.</p><p> </p><p>“Pizza, with Boyfriend Guy,” she announced. At the look on his face, “Hey it’s no Huckleberry but I’ve had a long night, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“All that running in the rain, you<em> could</em> have a fever,” he agreed. “We could <em>both</em> have one.”</p><p> </p><p>“Makes things more interesting?” Maya offered, then, “Nah, we’re plenty interesting on our own, but it could open up a <em>lot</em> of weird doors.”</p><p> </p><p>“And we like weird,” he reminded, and she pointed at him.</p><p> </p><p>“We do indeed.”</p><p> </p><p>“You know, the one thing I wish about tonight… except for no rain, of course…” She held up her fist and he bumped it. “I wish we’d taken a picture or something, to remember, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“You mean remember this?” she tapped the dress presently drying on his chair. He tried to play innocent, but there was no winning, was there? Maya reached for her phone, briefly tapped at it, and then his phone beeped. He looked, and there was a picture, taken in her room, he guessed, when they had just finished with her getting ready. “You didn’t by any chance take any… Scratch that, did your mom take any?” He tried to deny it, but then she moved to get up and go ask, so he pulled her back to sit and she laughed, taking hold of that face of his. “You send me one, okay? Hell, send them all.” He nodded, trapped in her hold, and she kissed him.</p><p> </p><p>Soon after, Katy Hart would call her daughter down to head home, and she went, drying dress in hand. Sitting in the car, she had shared the tale of her first date with Lucas, all the while thinking how somehow, by some great miracle, the night had flipped back to good, better than good. The dash out of the park had been reclaimed to the good column, and the museum incident, well it was a wash. Though she <em>had</em> half a mind to show up back there, at her absolute best dressed, and giving that guard a piece of her mind. She did understand what they had probably looked like, but everyone she’d told the story to had agreed that he had been out of line in his response. Despite all that, she would not let him stain the meaning that museum held for her.</p><p> </p><p>Home at last, she came into her room to find all her clothes back hanging in her closet. Riley and Nadine’s work. Maya was absolutely exhausted, too much even to try and record the night in her sketchbook. Tomorrow…</p><p> </p><p>Her phone beeped. She looked to find a picture waiting for her, showing Lucas back in his own pre-date state, the slightly awkward smile on his face promising who had taken that picture. She laughed into her hand, barely containing it, before composing her reply.</p><p> </p><p>‘Girlfriend Gal thanks Boyfriend Guy.’</p><p> </p><p>There it was… She sat here now, after The Date, capitals and all, and she was smiling so much she didn’t know that she could stop. Tonight had been good. Better yet, it was a start, their start… They were dating now, officially. One down, and now a second the next evening, which she couldn’t wait for either. She wasn’t feeling any of the nervousness anymore, only the anticipation, and it was possibly one of the best feelings.</p><p> </p><p>Soon she had given in to the sleep that had been calling for her for longer than she cared to admit, and she was out like a light, taking with her memories of a night she wouldn’t forget, like <em>he</em> wouldn’t forget it either. Already she planned to use those two pictures, hers and his, to create the portrait they had never gotten to take together. Who needed cameras anyway when they had art?</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0302"><h2>302. Her Choice to Advance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In little to no time, a month had passed since they’d become boyfriend and girlfriend, then a month since they’d actually started dating. December was now well under way, and with it… Christmas. It felt like they had only just had it, and yet they were both still so very much aware of those long months in between. Now that they’d gotten together, time seemed so willing to fly by that it didn’t even seem fair…</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t fair, but for that best and simple reason that they were happy. They had yet to attempt a second ‘Capital Letter Date,’ as they would say, but that had not stopped them from giving in to its lower-case counterpart, whenever they could, which tended to be on Fridays.</p><p> </p><p>The sight of them going about in ‘couple mode’ had stopped being odd to anyone. Now it was just what it was, and no one would bat an eye. Of course, now, with Christmas right around the corner, there was one delayed sort of milestone coming to be reached. Shawn Hunter would be making his way down to Austin for the holidays, which would be the first time since Maya and Lucas had started to date. Maya could see it in his eyes: as much as he’d figured he had gotten past it Lucas was finding he <em>was</em> still nervous about what that would all be like.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Maya had teased him, and he’d tried to look insulted but mostly came off as amused. She’d shifted her look to show that she really would, if need be, and he’d nodded.</p><p> </p><p>Then, the next day, he’d come to her bearing an invitation. He had let it slip unintentionally that Shawn was on his way down for a couple weeks, and his mother had immediately decided that the best course of action, of course, was to invite him, and Maya and Katy, to dinner at the house on Christmas Eve.</p><p> </p><p>“So…” Maya recapped upon receiving this, “You, and me, and your parents, and my… you know…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“For Christmas… Eve… all of us… at your house.” Again, he nodded. “It feels big, does it feel big?”</p><p> </p><p>“Huge, kinda,” he admitted, and it did sort of reassure her to know he thought the same. “We don’t have to.”</p><p> </p><p>“What, are you kidding? Why wouldn’t I want that? Christmas you and me, not sneaking around to give presents when we want to give them… By the way, I don’t want you to feel you have to break the bank because we’re dating now,” she looked him in the eye with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>“Noted,” he promised. She couldn’t pretend as though she hadn’t wondered what this change in their situation would mean, with holidays, birthdays… She herself had been working overtime to decide what to get him this year. Last year, the pocket watch, that had been as close to a girlfriend gift as anything, and finding something to top it…</p><p> </p><p>When she had informed her mother of the invitation, the look on her face had said it all; she found it amusing, as much as she noted it was another step forward for the pair of them. Maya had nearly fled the room, not wanting her mother to get in her head. Yes, it was a big step, but that was a good thing.</p><p> </p><p>It still didn’t feel possible, that they could have already been a couple for over a month. But then she knew that if she reached under her bed, she would find a box, and in that box, there would be a growing collection of little things that marked the progress they’d made. There were a few pictures, printed out, from the night of their rained out first date, and then one from the Friday, a couple weeks later, when they had gone back to the museum to finally see the exhibit. There were movie tickets, and a tiny stuffed elephant, a dried-up flower and a long red plastic spoon…</p><p> </p><p>At no time had she let herself sink back into that mind state that would make her fear the possibility that it could all come to an end. She wasn’t afraid anymore, and she had no intention to be again. She was happy, <em>they</em> were happy… and they would continue to be.</p><p> </p><p>She texted Shawn to let him know they had been invited to the Friars’ on Christmas Eve. He replied with a very simple sentiment, saying he couldn’t wait. Maya sort of couldn’t wait either. It may have been odd to look forward to her boyfriend being brought face to face with her… Shawn… but she really did want it. The two of them had become so important to her in the past two and a half years, for their own reasons, so why wouldn’t she want to see them get to know each other more?</p><p> </p><p>Okay, she might have been the tiniest bit concerned Lucas would be chased off by Shawn… just a bit… It’d be fine, right? It <em>was</em> Christmas…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0303"><h2>303. Her Choice to Recall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shawn’s arrival had been delayed a few days from its intended date, so that he landed in Austin on the 21<sup>st</sup> of December, three days before dinner at the Friars’. Of all the times for him to come around, it had to be as Maya returned from the mall, where she had gotten a job this year as one of Santa’s elves for some extra cash. It helped when she happened to be dating Santa’s grandson…</p><p> </p><p>She still had her costume on under her coat, and when she’d come into the house, there he was, sitting on the couch with her mother. He took one look at her, the hints of the costume evident as they were, and she barely managed to silence whatever reaction he might have had with a warning raise of a finger. He bowed his head as he got up and came to greet her, though as he hugged her he couldn’t help himself from tapping the bell on her hat and making it ring its high little sound, then pointing out the dusting of glitter on her cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>“Not even one picture?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Not if you know what’s good for you,” she squinted at him.</p><p> </p><p>Once she’d managed to go and ‘change back into a human,’ she returned to him, just as her mother had stepped out on an errand. Looking at him, standing and looking at their Christmas tree, Maya couldn’t help but think that the coming holiday, their third here, marked two years of the man being in their lives. Two years ago, he’d been no more than a stranger… a myth… The great Shawn Hunter. In so little time he had become the opposite of a stranger, he’d been a friend… an ally and confidant… a boyfriend to her mother… and a father figure, if she’d be so bold as to say.</p><p> </p><p>Time just had a way of sneaking up on them, didn’t it? On the one hand, it didn’t seem possible that she’d already been in Texas for over two years, and on the other… She couldn’t believe it had only been a little over two years since they had all been in her life. Lucas, and Shawn, and all her friends here… Sometimes it felt like they’d always been a part of her, even if she knew it had only been this short little portion.</p><p> </p><p>“Another year, another tree,” Maya sighed, coming to stand next to him, mimicking his stance.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah… hey,” he frowned, looking at her, making her smirk. “So… Dinner with the boyfriend and the family, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“You won’t call him ‘the boyfriend’ the whole time, will you?” she asked, giving him a look. That was what he kept calling him, whenever Lucas would come up when they talked. Maya would just chuckle or remind Shawn very calmly that ‘the boyfriend’ had a name. She knew he was just sort of messing with her, but now that they were actually going to interact, she had to wonder.</p><p> </p><p>“Why, that’s what he is, isn’t he?” he shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn…” she kept him fixed in a glare, so he relented.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll call him by his name, don’t worry, kid,” he put his arm around her shoulders. “Just… trying to look out for you,” he explained, and she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she told him. He did show himself interested in how things were going with her and Lucas, and she knew that a part of that was him ensuring that Lucas treated her right and all that, but the rest was mostly him knowing she was happy and wanting to share in that.</p><p> </p><p>She would do the same for him and her mother, of course. It was hard sometimes not to want to know that all was well, that they were not only happy on their own but together, too… and that her little long-distance family would get to carry on.</p><p> </p><p>While her mother was out, she showed the present she’d gotten her to Shawn. As before, he had sent her a little boost of funds for that. It wasn’t necessarily needed, she knew her mother would have been happy with anything, but Maya did like the idea of treating her mother to things she would never have allowed herself before. They were at ease in their new lives, more and more each year, but they would never forget.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what did <em>you</em> get her?” Maya asked, a curious glint in her eye. Shawn looked down with a smile, but all he gave in response was that it would be a surprise, and no matter how hard she’d try to get the revelation out of him, he wouldn’t say. Once her mother returned, there was no more chance to try.</p><p> </p><p>They had a quiet night, the three of them. Those first nights whenever Shawn would visit would always be so special. The last nights were, too, but for a whole other reason and not one she looked forward to. For now, she would focus on the fact that he was here, not that he’d leave. She had two weeks to look forward to with him in Austin.</p><p> </p><p>Already she had a sneaking suspicion he’d just show up at the mall the next day while she was working, to see her in full elf glory. All she could think about beyond that was the dinner, approaching more and more. She knew none were more anxious about how it would unfold than ‘the boyfriend.’</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0304"><h2>304. Her Choice to Arrive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya woke on Christmas Eve to a light snow. When she saw it, just out of her window, she took a breath and smiled, telling herself it would be a sign… a good day…</p><p> </p><p>She’d known they didn’t have to leave until mid afternoon, and even so, by the time her mother and Shawn had gotten up, Maya was already halfway ready to go. Once she <em>had</em> been ready, the long hours of wait were helped along by Shawn, who challenged her to a shoot off at the hoop. His challenge would in time be met with crushing defeat, right before they took off for the Friar house.</p><p> </p><p>The ride had been fairly normal, although once they’d come to a stop, Katy and Shawn were made a great request, as Maya begged them to be good that night. They’d turned to give her a look, but she’d held her ground. So, they promised. Now they were off to the door, where Maya knew, even before it happened, that Mrs. Friar would have that door open before they could so much as raise their hand to ring the bell.</p><p> </p><p>“Welcome, welcome,” Melinda Friar spoke to her guests. She gave Maya a hug, as she would, and cheek kisses to Katy and to Shawn in turn. “Merry Christmas, please come in…” she stepped back and ushered them in. Maya bit back the urge to laugh, seeing the looks on their faces. No matter how long one or the other had known Melinda Friar, she still had a way of being a bit… startling. “Lucas, Tom, our guests are here!” she intoned.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was first to come along, and Maya again was near laughing. They had already agreed that any displays of affection would be as they’d always been when parents were around, but even if they hadn’t, the added presence of Shawn seemed to have pushed all thought of getting within an arm’s length of her out of the question. He came to a stop there, gave her a nervous smile, then turned to the others.</p><p> </p><p>“Merry Christmas, Miss Hart… Mr. Hunter,” his voice gave the slightest quiver, and Maya’s hand came up to cover her smirk. Shawn turned to her, and she played it cool again. He took two steps forward, until he stood in front of Lucas. Maya looked from one to the other, waiting…</p><p> </p><p>“Just call me Shawn, alright?” he spoke casually, holding out his hand. Lucas hesitated just a bit, then put his hand in the one offered, and they shook. “You should breathe now, Lucas.” The boy obeyed, expelling the imprisoned air.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, thanks,” he nodded, then as their hands were still joined, he met Shawn’s gaze again. Looking at him, Maya could see all Shawn managed to say without a word, which seemed to translate as ‘we’re cool unless you hurt her.’ Lucas gave the smallest nod, which finally granted his hand a release, and Shawn looked around to see Mr. Friar come into the room like nothing happened.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas turned to Maya, who gave him a quick thumbs up, still swallowing back a laugh. All in all, it had gone pretty well, hadn’t it? Of course, the evening was just starting.</p><p> </p><p>Mr. Friar had welcomed Shawn and her mother before turning to Maya, welcoming her much as his wife had done, with a hug. Whereas Mrs. Friar’s embrace was both genuine and a little exaggerated, Mr. Friar’s felt like… well, like she was family. She couldn’t explain how much that meant to her.</p><p> </p><p>Their coats had been taken from them, and then they’d gone to sit in the living room. Before they could make it there, Maya really wanted to at least get to say hello to Lucas properly, and she gave him a look she hoped he’d understand. He was in the process of sitting down when she gave it, and at once he stopped mid way and stood again.</p><p> </p><p>“I-I have to show Maya something for a second, be right back,” he spoke, just bordering on sounding like he was asking a question, gave a nod all around, then went to her and led her out of the living room, out in the hall.</p><p> </p><p>“Real smooth, Huckleberry,” she whispered.</p><p> </p><p>“Where am I showing you this thing that I have to show you?” he whispered back, and she darted her eyes back to the living room, pointing out their current entourage. “We’ll… be in the kitchen,” he nodded back to the four sitting in the living room.</p><p> </p><p>Maya followed him, sneaking a look back to the four of them out there. Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar didn’t look in any way concerned, and neither did her mother, really. They’d had weeks to get acclimated to Lucas and her as a couple, of course. Then there was Shawn, who watched them go, not like he intended to react, just wondering, maybe.</p><p> </p><p>‘Be cool,’ she mouthed to him, tipping her head. He blinked, then looked back to Katy with a smile. Maya breathed out before continuing on with Lucas toward the kitchen, where, once they were properly alone, she came up to him with a grin and stretched up to kiss him. “Merry Christmas…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0305"><h2>305. Her Choice to Grow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes it still didn’t feel like it could be real, didn’t feel like it could have been all those weeks since that day, the morning after Halloween, when they had started. Sometimes she would do something as simple as reaching out to him, or kissing him hello, which had by now become part of their reality. She would think of how that had all started nearly two months ago, would remember the time before, the time right after… She hadn’t forgotten; she just felt so lucky.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that look?” he smirked, looking back at her as they stood in his kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Just… happy to see you,” she shrugged. “Happy we got through the first part of all this and we’re fine,” she gestured around. “I told you it would be though…”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know about ‘fine,’ I mean you saw that, with the handshake, the look?” Lucas tried to imitate it, which only made her have to bite back more laughter.</p><p> </p><p>“Starting to wonder who’s being more ridiculous, you or him,” she planted her hands on his shoulders. “Besides, if anything ever went sideways between me and you, he’s off in Philly, and there are a <em>number</em> of people right here in Austin who’d give you a piece of their mind before he ever got to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” he cringed.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but this is,” she joined her hands around his neck, giving him a smile. “I don’t think there is anything, <em>anything</em> for you to worry about. I haven’t been so confident about anything in my life that didn’t deserve that trust. Okay? You deserve trust.”</p><p> </p><p>And his face did relax, his whole stance did, his arms folding around her before he could kiss her again, allowing it to linger about as long as he would, minding where they were and who was in the other room. After that, much as they wished otherwise, they had released their hold, taking a couple steps back from each other until they stood as they might do on a regular day, even if it was anything but.</p><p> </p><p>It was their first Christmas as a couple. It might have been early to think about anything under those terms, but maybe for that long stretch from January to November… It didn’t feel too early at all. It <em>was</em> their first Christmas as a couple.</p><p> </p><p>As with the last year’s Christmas, they and their friends had entered into a bit of Secret Santa shenanigans. As before, she would of course get Riley something no matter what, and this year she <em>would</em> get Lucas something, just out in the open, mostly. The other gifts were to be exchanged the next day, but their gifts to each other, those would be exchanged today. They had shopped together for their Secret Santa gifts, on her breaks from working in the ‘village’ with Santa Joe. This year, she had Zay, and he had Riley, which had made things infinitely easier. They could very easily offer suggestions for gifts the other could give to their respective best friends of old. As for the rest…</p><p> </p><p>“Tomorrow, you’re coming early to the Matthews’ to help us set up, right?” Maya asked, and he nodded. They’d been supposed to spend Christmas in Philly this year, Riley and her family. But then the plans had fallen through sort of last minute, and Maya knew both Riley and Auggie were upset over it, which could only mean their friends felt the call to rally around them. They were all heading in early to ‘help set things up,’ but really to help get the cheer of the day spread a bit quicker for the pair of them. Maya felt kind of bad about the fact that she did feel relieved knowing she’d still get to spend Christmas with Riley. They’d missed one year and that had been enough.</p><p> </p><p>“Want me to come and get you?” he asked, and she smiled. “It would be like going to school except not…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, except we’ll probably head out too early, me, Mom, Shawn…” Lucas nodded at this like he’d forgotten. At least he didn’t look near as spooked as he’d done before, so that was progress. “<em>We</em> could come and get <em>you</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” he agreed at once. “Guess we should get back out there,” he added after a beat. Maya signalled for him to follow her quietly. They could approach up to a point where they could then see into the living room and not be seen if they were quiet.</p><p> </p><p>They came to stand there, him behind her, and they watched the four adults interacting together. To no one’s surprise, Melinda Friar seemed to be leading the conversation, with Katy Hart not far behind. Tom Friar was halfway silent, which was expected, though he would jump in now and again. And Shawn Hunter…</p><p> </p><p>“Does he look weird to you?” Lucas whispered, and Maya quickly pushed him back toward the kitchen before anyone could hear or see them. There she took a breath, then motioned for him to follow at a pace that indicated they were going back into the living room, not spying some more.</p><p> </p><p>He was right though, or at least she’d seen what he was referring to. There <em>had</em> been a strange look on Shawn’s face as he sat there with her mother and the Friars. Maya wasn’t sure what it was about, but it was gone when she and Lucas joined them.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0306"><h2>306. Her Choice to Celebrate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wouldn’t be long before the six of them sat at the dinner table which of course, under the leadership of Melinda Friar, was a feast. Lucas had told Maya, two Christmases back, how leftovers from the holidays could easily feed them through March, which she’d taken as exaggeration until he’d delivered a cooler full of portioned and frozen containers to her a few days after Christmas. He’d done the same the year before, and Maya expected the same in a few days’ time. This year, the added element was that she had contributed to the preparation of some of the items on the table that night. She never even had to brag about it; Mrs. Friar did it for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t imagine it’s any wonder, really. She’s an artist, through and through, even with a… knife or a whisk!” Lucas’ mother declared with a flourish, turning a proud smile to her son’s girlfriend. Maya received this praise with a trembling, blushing smile of her own, followed by a quiet word of thanks.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was sitting next to her, across from her mother, while she was across from Shawn. It made it so that, following his mother’s compliments on to her, he had reached his hand over to tap her side discreetly, and she’d looked at him, finding that pride extended to him as well. For lack of a better way to respond to it, in present company, she’d briefly reached to his retreating hand, giving it a squeeze.</p><p> </p><p>The dinner as a whole could be said to have been a rousing success. Whatever concerns either she or Lucas may have had at the thought of this evening with the six of them, so far, none of them had really come to pass. Lucas and his concerns over Shawn and their relationship, that had lasted all of two minutes, really.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s mother had somehow spent much of the meal chatting with Lucas’, which in turn had Shawn conversing with Mr. Friar, leaving the two kids to take all this in from where they sat. It wasn’t split like that al the time, but there were definitely some stretches where it did, and those felt like down time, where they could breathe. Maya half suspected this was her mother’s machination, from knowing how her pal Melinda could get, and how Maya herself looked to this dinner with apprehension.</p><p> </p><p>Even on these ‘down times’ though, both Maya and Lucas would have their ears turned to the conversations around them. After all, who knew what their parents could go and start talking about? It could be that they would need to jump in and change one subject or another. It never got to that, but the possibility had been enough to keep them tense. And even when the talk was all over the table, they would still wonder.</p><p> </p><p>After a while though, after seeing that, all things considered, things were going well, they had started to relax a bit. This was Christmas Eve after all, wasn’t it? They were not just here to stress about what their parents might or might not say, they were here to enjoy the holidays together, which was really at the heart of it. Their first Christmas as a couple…</p><p> </p><p>Maya couldn’t help but feel like the Friar house at Christmas was something straight out of one of those gushy Christmas movies her mother would pretend not to love, with the perfectly decorated house, the ones even stuck on the other side of a screen you just knew smelled like… cinnamon and chocolate, oranges, and any other scent you might associate with the holiday. She couldn’t get enough of it. This year, having been invited to assist in the preparations, well… she’d jumped at the chance.</p><p> </p><p>There was one thing she’d been unable to push away in order to focus on the dinner and the holidays. It was the thing Lucas had pointed out to her right before they’d rejoined their parents in the living room earlier. <em>Does he look weird to you?</em> He, here, being Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>And yes, he did look strange. It wasn’t always so easy to pick up on, but it <em>was</em> there now that she’d picked up on it. It was hard to explain what it was like. It was… His thoughts seemed to be divided. Part of them were very much here with them, talking to Tom Friar or any of them, but the other parts, those… they seemed so far away, busy with something that could not apparently be put off until later when they weren’t where they were. Maya just kept on wondering what it could be, what had him so distracted.</p><p> </p><p>But then eventually she had let it slip out of <em>her</em> focus, in exchange for her enjoying the arrival of the dessert she had helped to make. She couldn’t say that she had made it with any one of them in mind in particular, only that she wanted them all to love it. She had been so careful to follow instructions, knowing how in the past she had let herself wander off course only to create… disasters.</p><p> </p><p>Her dessert had been very well received, in no way feeling that anyone was just being nice so she wouldn’t feel bad. They all really liked it. When they were done, people had gotten up from the table, and she was already looking forward to leading Lucas to where she might give him his present and vice versa. But then Shawn had come along and asked to speak to her for a minute.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0307"><h2>307. Her Choice to Make</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya followed Shawn out of the house, where they then stood quietly on the front lawn while Maya wondered what was going on. She watched <em>him</em> as he stood there, looking very much on the distracted side. She tapped at his shoulder and he turned.</p><p> </p><p>“What is up with you?” she asked, point blank. She had never seen him look so nervous, so plainly off his game.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, right, well…” he started, something in him looking sort of… determined, <em>so</em> determined, but also shaken up? “It’s like this, it’s…” He laughed, shaking his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Spit it out, Hunter!” she begged, halfway to rolling her eyes but mostly not knowing that she could have sustained not knowing much longer. Was there something wrong? With him and her mom, or… just with him? If it was serious enough that he would pull her aside…</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he held up his hand, “Okay. Well, it’s like this. On the way down here a few days ago, I just got to thinking about how it would be two years soon since I’d met you and your mom.” Two years as of the day before… “I realized that, and I tried to count how many times I’ve made the trip, from Philadelphia to Austin and back in all that time, and… I couldn’t. I lost count.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I can’t remember either,” Maya quietly replied, still unsure where this was going.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well the conclusion I came to was that I couldn’t do it anymore. This long-distance thing.”</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, time stretched to an eternity when given up to the works of her mind. Was he really just… giving up? Giving them up? A great cold pierced her, right in the back, through her heart, tearing her lungs and emerging out her throat. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be, not here, not now…</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… Oh, no, no, Maya,” Shawn’s face burst with shock at what her face must have turned into in the moment. He shook his head… smiling? “I’m saying I can’t be away from you anymore… can’t bear it.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she hiccupped, her voice all of a tremor.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, the reason I brought you out here is… I thought I should talk to you first, because… because I want to ask your mom… Well, I want to ask her to marry me.”</p><p> </p><p>For a split second, she must have looked like she was about to pass out, because he quickly reached out like he meant to catch her. At the same time, she did the opposite of falling, she jumped, into his arms, holding so tight, her feet could have left the ground and she would have been secured in his hold. He put his arms around her, too. It wasn’t as though he’d made his proposal yet, but even in the knowledge of his intent, shared between the two of them, it was enough, wasn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>When she released him, she had tears in her eyes, on her face, but where a minute ago they might have been of deep sadness, now they were of such joy that she could barely contain herself.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’re okay with this, that’s what I’m getting?” he joked, even as his own face looked like he could have shed a few tears, too. For the time being though he settled on wiping away those on her face. She nodded, and he smiled. “Good… good.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, are you… tomorrow?” she wondered.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no. I don’t even have the ring yet. You want to come with me to look at those?” he asked, and she nodded with great energy. “I was thinking, next time I come down here, I could surprise her, you know? Won’t tell her I’m coming, just… yeah,” he explained. Maya liked the sound of that.</p><p> </p><p>Now she was starting to see why he’d been so nervous and weird earlier. Sure, he wasn’t making The Proposal today, or in the next several days, but still it had been such a big thing just to decide that he would do this, and there among the Friars, and her mom and her, it must have been so real and overwhelming.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, this stays between us until then, alright?” he asked. Her head momentarily turned back to the door, and the thought that had carried the movement must have been evident. “Does he keep secrets well?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she replied as directly as one could, keeping herself from pointing out how they’d kept their own secret for almost a year.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, but just him,” Shawn consented. “Only because he’ll probably see something’s up,” he pointed to her face, likely still tear-streaked yet smiling. “Maybe not Riley though…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, no, she could keep it, or she could spill it in half a second, there’s just no telling,” Maya agreed. After a pause, she hugged him again, and he hugged her back. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, she really didn’t, and yet… If Shawn married her mother, then… then… that word she had tiptoed around for so long might finally have been hers to shout…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0308"><h2>308. Her Choice to Exchange</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she stepped back inside the house, Lucas was coming in from the living room like he’d been looking around for her. He saw the sign of tears on her face and immediately stepped up to approach her, wanting to know what had happened to make her cry. Without a word, she nodded up the stairs and they went up there. She led him into his room, pulling his chair to sit by the window, of all places. As she sat there, she let out a breath… and smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya?” Lucas asked, confused. “Are you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to tell you something right now, and you can’t tell anyone, okay? That’s a friend promise <em>and</em> a couple one, too, got it?” she pointed at him. He held up his hand, as though swearing an oath. She motioned to the door and he went to close it before returning to half sit/lean against the window ledge. “We really need another chair in here,” she mumbled to herself before turning back to him, once again on track. “I know why Shawn was acting strange before.”</p><p> </p><p>“You do?” Even with the door closed, she took a look back to it before leaning near enough that she could whisper as she looked him in the eye.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s going to propose… to my mom, he’s going to ask her to marry him,” she revealed. Suddenly her tears must have finally made sense to him, as the tense feeling he’d clasped upon seeing her had released at once, and now he was happy right there with her. She told him the rest of it, how he wouldn’t do it right away, not until his next visit, that he’d asked her to help find the ring, and that he had agreed to let her tell Lucas the secret in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, this could be good, I mean if he wants to get messages to you and he doesn’t want your mom to get suspicious, he could send them to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’d do that?” she blinked, then, “What am I saying, of course you would, you’re you.” The offer had earned him a kiss, and he’d given one right back.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready for your Christmas present?” he asked, and she sat upright, putting her hands before herself like a platter ready to receive.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, please,” she smirked, then, “Wait, yours is still downstairs, be right back.” And she dashed off.</p><p> </p><p>Her shoes were left at the top of the stairs, the better to sneak down, grab the bag with the present, then sneak back upstairs with little to no parental interruption. Light on her feet as she went, she had the bag in no time and was back to climbing toward the second floor, though she stopped halfway, seeing into the dining room as she did. They were all sat there, the four of them, talking, still in the same chairs as before and showing no sign of wondering where she or Lucas had gotten off to. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or sort of thrown off at this apparent trust. Besides, she was much more interested in seeing them there, sat side by side, her mother and Shawn. Though they were speaking with Melinda and Tom Friar respectively, there was very much this sense of closeness between them. She could just hear Shawn’s words in her head. He couldn’t stand to be away from them anymore, couldn’t bear it. She could have known that just looking at them. With a smile, she continued back upstairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it… Hey,” she pointed to the second chair which had up and materialized in her absence.</p><p> </p><p>“Guest room,” he simply declared, as he sat on the new chair. She could see something wrapped, sitting next to him. “Who goes first?” he asked. Maya hurried to her chair, sat, and pulled the present from the bag, holding it out to him.</p><p> </p><p>“You go,” she smiled, but then he picked up his own box.</p><p> </p><p>They had agreed that this year, while they <em>were</em> a new couple, it didn’t mean they had to break the bank, but even so she could see in his face that he had put some thought into the present he’d gotten her, and he hoped very much that she would like it.</p><p> </p><p>The package he set in her waiting hands was rectangular, not so high, which could have called up the thought that it would be anything from art supplies to a jigsaw puzzle or an item of clothing in a box. Peeling back the wrapping paper, she quickly understood the box had been reused, the better to protect the object inside.</p><p> </p><p>The box held a canvas, not blank at all but rather painted in what felt fairly abstract as a subject, though at the same time the colors did very much feel as though they spoke to her; she knew who the artist would have been here. When she turned to him, he still had that shy look going. He’d tried his hand at something far out of his zone, in <em>her</em> zone, really, and he wasn’t sure what she’d think. She looked back at the canvas now, eyes seeking, and after a few seconds, she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Running through the rain,” she declared, and he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“I just wanted to try it,” he explained. “I didn’t want to try and make anything too… life like. I couldn’t do that, but… You figured it out, so that’s a good sign, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“No better one there,” she promised, feeling like her earlier tear-inducing joy might have passed the crying spell on to this one. “I love it, I really do. It’s going on my wall as soon as I’m home. Right now, I need to give you your thing before I lose it,” she pointed to her face and handed over the present from her bag.</p><p> </p><p>She had long debated with herself what she might give him. Last year, the watch, she hadn’t even really had to think about it, it hadn’t been about finding something. She knew he wanted one, so she’d gotten him one, simple as that. Now, there wasn’t really anything she’d been able to think of that she’d been aware he would want. So, when that wasn’t the option anymore, she’d just had to stop and think… What would make him happy, for no other reason other than that it did… It had almost driven her mad. Was it so wrong that she’d wanted to give him Just The Right Thing? Nothing she’d come up with would feel like it was enough.</p><p> </p><p>Funny enough, she had almost done what <em>he’d</em> done, essentially. She was going to paint him something, or draw… It was as she’d been contemplating what to paint that she’d come up with the solution to her gift conundrum. The next big change in his life, next to their becoming boyfriend and girlfriend in the late year, had been the arrival of Dash the pup, at last sighting downstairs, sneaking through the kitchen for a treat. Lucas had been so taken with the little creature, the feeling mutual, even as it had meant the ruin of a few shoes, socks, and a favored hoodie; he hadn’t even batted an eye. It was just a thing, and Dash was Dash.</p><p> </p><p>The box was fairly light, and for good reason. When he opened it, Lucas found not one but two identical hoodies, emblazoned with his favorite team’s logo.</p><p> </p><p>“One to replace the broken one… and a spare one, just in case,” she explained, and seeing the laughing smile that cracked over his face, she knew that her aim had been true and on target.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be careful with both of them, I swear,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, also,” she went back digging in her bag, emerging with a smaller package, not wrapped with anything more than a bow and ribbon. It was a blanket, in the same colors. “For Chompers the Wonderdog.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” he laughed again. “For all of it.” The presents had been set aside, the better to lean across the small gap between their chairs and share a kiss, this one holding all the happiness of the day, all the alleviated stress they might have carried. It went on, until Maya had very nearly left her own chair to join him on his and then a sound at the door brought them to a stop. The scratching, whimpering noise was known at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Hide the hoodies,” Maya told Lucas, rising with a smirk to go and let in the small dog.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0309"><h2>309. Her Reflection on Joy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The year had ended in peace, and it carried on into the new year. January had gone by, it felt, in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t that there had been nothing, not at all. They were simply happy, at ease… All of them friends had gone about their days in that great sort of spirit, doing as they would always do. There was school, their first year of high school carrying on, not so scary anymore, no. This was their school now, their world. They came in the morning, left in the afternoon…</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been working hard, keeping the promise she’d made to Nadine in mind. Those advanced classes, next year… It was one great mountain for her to climb, without a doubt. She may have improved over the past two and a half years since she’d come to Texas, but these were heights she had never aspired to, not until they became the price for her to keep her friend at her side, on the basketball court. The line was nearing, the moment where she would need to prove herself in order to gain access to those classes, and that meant preparation, a lot of it. There were some days where it all just felt like one giant headache that she didn’t need to submit herself to. But then when she would feel that way, she would end up feeling a surge of determination. She didn’t break promises, she knew what she was signing up for when she made that deal. And she <em>was</em> making progress, she could see it. She had come so far, and she was not turning back. More than a promise to a friend, she would benefit, too.</p><p> </p><p>Then there was basketball. It was more demanding than ever, too, but in a good way. The sport had been a bonding agent between them from the start. Whether it was in a gym, or the park, or at the hoops at one of their houses, when all was said and done, they would get to sit together and happily reminisce.</p><p> </p><p>Then with the end of January, it had been February’s start, and with it, the start of red hearts popping up all around. Valentine’s Day was fast approaching, and this year, with six of their nine in relationships, it felt like more of an event than any year before. Zay and Nadine were already at their second pass through Cupid’s big day, and they were just as dorky about it as they’d been the year before. As for Joey and Rebecca, it was much as they always were. They did their own thing, part of their group but at the same time sort of out of it. As for Maya and Lucas…</p><p> </p><p>They had now been a couple for just over three months, a milestone that felt as incredible as any of the ones they’d passed before and likely would pass in the future. The waiting period they’d held to, now that it was over, continued to have this effect on them, she guessed. It all had felt so impossible once, but now it was real. There was still the feeling in them, the feeling that it couldn’t have been real, and yet… and yet it was… and it was the happiest either of them had ever felt, happy and against all odds so very unafraid.</p><p> </p><p>The past weeks had been greatly dedicated, on top of everything else before, to the secret plans set in motion on Christmas Eve. Shawn, the proposal to her mother. As Lucas had offered it, Shawn had taken up the offer for him to be the go between when messages needed to be sent Maya’s way. It was sort of strange at first to think that the two of them might actually be having conversations on their own, without her knowing. At the same time, she had come to feel like yes, they <em>were</em> talking, Lucas and Shawn. She felt it, because in those weeks, in talking to each of them, talking of the other in passing, it had come to feel like the pair of them actually… started to befriend one another? She couldn’t know for sure, and she wasn’t about to ask, but if it could be true… it could be something really good, couldn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>The plan was coming together, that was for sure. Maya had gone with Shawn, shortly before his return home to Philadelphia, to find the ring. As far as her mother knew, he had taken her to some museum exhibit that day, explaining away not only how long it would take but also their inability to call or write while they were there. Maya and Shawn had been in that jewelry store for a long time, but it had been worth it. When they were done, Shawn Hunter was in possession of an engagement ring for Katy Hart. Maya had even swiped a ring from her mother’s room to make sure they’d get the size right. Her mother had nearly caught her putting it back, but she’d gotten away clear. The secret remained.</p><p> </p><p>As bad as she felt for keeping Riley out of the loop, she knew her friend would understand in the end. And where she didn’t have Riley, she did have Lucas. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t enjoy all the sneaking around, though at the same time she knew she had to be careful; they didn’t want to give the wrong idea.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn had yet to set a date for his surprise visit to be turned into a proposal. Maya didn’t probe too much on that front, didn’t want to make Shawn feel at all pressured. At the same time, she would look at her mother day to day and think… She had no idea this was coming, none at all, no idea her life was about to change. Maya tried not to let herself think of the chance she might say no. Why would she? As much as Shawn said he couldn’t bear to be away from them anymore, Maya saw the reverse of that, too, saw her mother in the moments, the days, following his departure back for Philly, and her mother looked like a part of her had gone away.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0310"><h2>310. Her Reflection on Seconds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Much as she tried to think about other things, her thoughts would sooner or later veer back toward the impending Valentine's Day. She'd never <em>imagined</em> herself making a fuss over it. The extent of her interest up until then had more to do with chocolate and those little cinnamon hearts being put at her disposal. She would get those from her mother, and from Riley... But that was all it was.</p><p> </p><p>The first time she'd come close to looking at it like something more was the year before. At that point, it had been about a month since the New York kiss, and the start of the secret between Lucas and her. When the decorations had gone up, and all the talk had been dominated by the subject, she had felt like a spotlight had emerged overhead, reminding her of what she'd almost had, what she <em>could</em> have at the single mention of a word, what she was too afraid to seek.</p><p> </p><p>Well now she had it, and February 14th was just around the corner, wasn't it? She had a boyfriend, on Valentine's Day... But it wasn't even just that, was it? No, it was that this boyfriend of hers was Lucas Friar, her good cowboy Huckleberry, her best friend from Texas. It was this boy who had come to mean so much in her life that it defied words, that she found herself liking more with each passing day. It was this boy she knew for a fact shared those exact feelings, and she knew, because all she had to do was look at his face, his eyes...</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was all the decorations making her toe the Cupid line, but it did feel in these days like everything was just increased, brighter, bolder... All she felt for him was as strong as it had ever been.</p><p> </p><p>He showed up at her window that Saturday morning before Valentine's, tapping at the pane with his index until she turned in her seat and saw him there, smirking at her. She reached out at once to open the window and he came through, sitting next to her.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey," she chuckled, closing the window again. Seeing how his gaze dragged to the door, she shook her head. "My mom's not here," she informed him, and he relaxed. She gave him a look, and he blinked, remembering he hadn't said...</p><p> </p><p>"Hi," he smiled. "Sorry, I..." he started to add but stopped when she cut him off with a kiss. He forgot all need to go on, leaning into the kiss, his hand moving to brush hair from her face before resting at her cheek. It was coming to the point where little more mattered to either of them except to let this feeling expand, and linger, until finally, for lack of air, they had to pause, and part, and breathe, though their heads remained very close to one another. Maya wondered if he could feel the warmth in her face as much as she could.</p><p> </p><p>"Kind of lightheaded over here," she breathed.</p><p> </p><p>"Well if you fly off, I'm coming with you," he replied.</p><p> </p><p>"You better," she nodded, as his hand moved back down to his side and they sat back. "Did you get another message?" she asked, wondering what had brought him to the window rather than the front door, which had been his habit, not wanting to have his intentions misinterpreted by her mother. He <em>had</em> been coming to her window with messages though, always looking like a spy on a dangerous mission.</p><p> </p><p>"No, not this time," he shook his head. "I was just thinking... I know we said on Tuesday afternoon I'd come over and we'd watch a movie together and all, but then I thought... it's going to be Valentine's Day, <em>our</em> first one together..."</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," she beamed, and he took her hand in his.</p><p> </p><p>"I know it's a school night, and I know the last time we tried a capital D Date it got kind of... rained out..." On the wall, just past his head, the painting he'd made her for Christmas hung on her wall. "But it's Valentine's, so... Do you think we're ready for our second Date?" he asked.</p><p> </p><p>The weird thing was, as hectic and off balance as their first Date had turned out, looking back on it now she didn't feel in any way like she'd change it. That was their first Date, and no one could accuse it of not being memorable.</p><p> </p><p>"We're not putting all that pressure on again this time," she stated, and he shook his head in agreement. "We've had loads of... lowercase d dates and they've all been pretty good, haven't they?"</p><p> </p><p>"Every one," he confirmed.</p><p> </p><p>"I think you're right, I think we're ready. So, yes, I think it's about time for our second Date. Are you pulling out the big plans again?"</p><p> </p><p>"Who's to say I haven't come up with new ones since then?" he sat back, chin up, and she fixed him with an intrigued look. "Didn't you say you always wanted to plan the next one?" Her look shifted into a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>"You're right. I did. Alright, out you go, Huckleberry," she pulled the window open. "I have some planning to do." He raised his hand to protest his expulsion, and she replied with a kiss to send him off.</p><p> </p><p>"Alright, fair enough, I'll go," he nodded before scrambling out the window, almost banging his head on the way, making her laugh.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0311"><h2>311. Her Reflection on Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She was just coming out of art class on Monday when Lucas came dashing up the hall toward her. She'd barely had time to smile, meaning to say hello again at least, when he brought up her hand and placed his phone in it. She looked at the screen and recognized the fake name he had given Shawn in his contacts, in case her mother should somehow happen to see his phone and wonder why he and Shawn were writing each other.</p><p> </p><p>"Landing in Austin. Tell Maya it's on," she read out, the meaning of the words somehow not landing until she'd finished saying them. She looked back up to Lucas, eyes going wide. "This is it..." her voice faltered. She looked back at the screen, her excitement reasserting itself. "This is it!" She handed him the phone back, for fear she might drop it somehow.</p><p> </p><p>"This is it," he repeated with a nod, clearly reciprocating the joy she felt.</p><p> </p><p>"Okay, what do we..." she started to say, then stopped all at once and changed position, as she spotted Riley and Nadine coming out of class.</p><p> </p><p>"Maya, come on, we gotta get changed for gym," Nadine grabbed her arm and pulled her on down the hall, leaving no choice for her to signal to Lucas that they would pick up this conversation later. They could almost have just told the others about the proposal secret, now that they were so close to it, but Maya knew it was better that they carried on as they'd been doing. Any little deviation could end up running away from them, and they couldn't have that, not when they were so close to the end.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had always been the fastest at changing and being ready for gym class, but that day might have been her fastest. She'd left the girls' locker room, checked the gym, and when she didn't find him, she hurried to stand outside the door to the boys' locker room. She was saved from considering busting in there when one of the other boys came out.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey, Ray, favor? Get back in there, tell Lucas to hurry? Thanks?" she said, all the while nudging the startled boy back into the locker room. Half a minute later, Lucas emerged. "As I was saying..."</p><p> </p><p>They couldn't stay out too late that night, already having received some extension on their school night curfew for the next day. Already they didn't know exactly what time Shawn would be landing, or when he'd actually be in the area. Lucas did tell her he had texted back to ask on that subject, which was what had kept him in the locker room so long.</p><p> </p><p>"We do have that project for French class," he reminded her. "We can go to the library, we'll work on that, and we can meet Shawn at the same time."</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, that could work... if he's here on time. What if he's not?" she asked, pausing for a beat while some of the boys exited the locker room.</p><p> </p><p>"Tomorrow, after I come get you, on the way to Riley's house?"</p><p> </p><p>"That might be problematic, with my mom on one end and the Captain of the Shawn Hunter Fan Club on the other end. But if it's our only option..."</p><p> </p><p>"Speaking of tomorrow..." he started, giving her a smirk. He had enjoyed this reversal of sorts, the last couple of days, being the one curious about the Date plans, her being the one holding all the cards, and his trying to get her to crack and tell him something. She found it sweet, really, that he would think she could be made to crack...</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, about that," she smirked back. "You got my message about..." she grasped the invisible hat on her head and he confirmed that he had, looking just on this side of sheepish. "Now I don't want you thinking that it's any kind of clue about where we're going, I just... want that to be a part of it," she innocently shrugged before moving off, casual as ever, back toward the gym.</p><p> </p><p>It was all coming together, wasn't it? Shawn would be here tonight, which told her he likely planned to pop that question on Valentine's Day itself. She hoped that it would be the right choice. Part of her did stop to think about what it would mean for her and the Date with Lucas. She kind of wanted to be there for the proposal, <em>had</em> to be, going by the plans they'd been making, but then there were these other plans, the ones for the Date. Could they manage to do both, or would they have to change some part of the proposal plan?</p><p> </p><p>She had gym class to get through now, basketball practice after, and then... then it was all going to begin, one step after another, and she'd be ready. Whatever they did, they'd find a way. She chose to believe that, she had to. This, all of it, was one moment and another that she had been waiting on, and she saw no other choice than to go out for everything she wanted. That was who she'd grown into now. A girl who hoped.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0312"><h2>312. Her Reflection on Preparation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Had it arrived on time, there would have been no doubt that Shawn’s flight would have landed early enough for them to be sure he’d make it to the library before Maya and Lucas needed to head back home without missing their curfew. But it was late, and as the girl and boy sat across from one another, working on their French project, it was hard not to look at the clock every minute or so.</p><p> </p><p>“We have ten minutes,” Maya looked at the clock on the wall. “Then we have to go.” The flight <em>had</em> landed, finally, after which Shawn had needed to get his bags, rent a car, and come over. But he wasn’t there yet. Lucas closed his textbook, then reached over and closed hers.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Assez</em>,” he declared. Enough. She nodded, sighing, as she leaned her forehead on top of her book. Not thirty seconds later she felt someone tap on the back of her neck, fallen exposed, and she batted her hands up to chase Lucas’, only the arm she captured was clearly reaching from behind her, and she could still feel Lucas’ feet under the table, tangled with her own. Her head turned and eyes looked up to find a travel weary…</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn…” she stood and hugged him in the same motion, and he held her just as tight. All this time they had been planning for this proposal, but now that he was here, it was like it was finally something substantial. They were on the verge of something new, something big, and it had them teary-eyed.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry I’m late,” he told her with a smile before turning a look to Lucas across the table. “Hey there, Howdy,” he nodded, and Maya snorted, seeing the exasperated look on her boyfriend’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, that’s an improvement,” she told him, remembering the days of ‘the boyfriend.’</p><p> </p><p>Maya sat back down, and Shawn sat down next to her. She set the phone before her eyes, so she would remember they had to be out of there in all of eight minutes. It hadn’t felt like much as they waited for Shawn to come, though now that he had, all of a sudden it felt like all the time they’d need.</p><p> </p><p>“So, tomorrow night then?” she asked, and Shawn gave a certain nod in reply. She had to stop herself from squeaking, especially minding where they were. “Okay, but what time, because, well…” she turned to look at Lucas across the table.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… right…” Shawn sat back like it hadn’t dawned on him until then that she might have plans already. “I mean, I want you there when I…”</p><p> </p><p>“And I want to be there,” Maya nodded, smiling here again as she’d done whenever she’d recall this was going to happen, someday soon. “We can make it work, right? After the Date? Not like <em>you</em> have a curfew, or school the next morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“And that’s a good thing,” he agreed, and Maya and Lucas both smirked. “Okay, well so what do we need to adjust?” he asked, pulling out a small notepad from his jacket pocket. Maya snatched it at once. “Hey,” he snatched it back.</p><p> </p><p>“What, I want to see,” she complained.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, so it’s okay if you do that, but not if I do?” Lucas asked, nodding to the notebook, and Maya thought back to his ‘attempts’ so far to discover her plans for their Date the next evening.</p><p> </p><p>“Yep,” she simply said, while Shawn relented and relinquished his notepad and the notes that he’d taken about the proposal plans. She knew Lucas had been the one to inadvertently put the idea in Shawn’s head that he even needed to keep notes while they worked this out.</p><p> </p><p>Reading through the notes, it was as she’d expected, looking clearly like these notes had been taken while also talking on the phone, leaving the letters sort of wobbly and at times hard to read. Even so, she got to the bottom of it, and it was all they’d been discussing, from the abandoned follies to the still considered options. She saw at one point though “February 14<sup>th</sup>” written boldly and circled several times; he’d made up his mind… for better or for worse.</p><p> </p><p>Their precious few minutes were put to use, shifting what needed shifting, to compensate for the allowing of time for Maya and Lucas and The Date 2.0. They had it set, and any other details could be sent right to Maya starting the next morning; there’d be no more need to hide or pretend anymore, would there? The day was upon them.</p><p> </p><p>And then the time was up, and Maya and Lucas scrambled to go. Shawn offered to drive them, but they chose to ride the bus, making sure their little lie could pass scrutiny in a breeze. Maya hugged Shawn again, tightly, thinking how in a day’s time he’d be on the path… to hopefully become… to be… Oh, what he’d been for a long time.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” Lucas asked as they reached the bus stop. She tried not to look at him, even if the tears threatening to spill from her eyes were happy ones. She smiled, and he put his arm around her.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah… never better…” she vowed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0313"><h2>313. Her Reflection on Valentine's</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, Lucas had shown up on her doorstep like any morning, only this one being the morning of February 14<sup>th</sup>, his arrival was also marked with the gifting of a flower. He revealed how this had been his mother’s insistence before he could ever think to do so himself, because she thought it was simply the thing to do for your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. It seemed his father had done so for her, back when they’d first started dating, and every year since, and it was a tradition now to be passed on to them.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to do it already,” he went on. “I mean, all my life, every year on Valentine’s Day morning, he’d give her a flower, and it felt like… I wanted to do that, too… for you.”</p><p> </p><p>So off they’d gone, Maya carrying the small token all day long with so much joy coming off of her that no one had better take or damage that flower of hers. The day as a whole had made it so easy for them to get lost in that mood, the school inundated as it was with decorations. It seemed the committee here was very into their holidays, as they’d seen all year long.</p><p> </p><p>And then the day had ended, thankfully free of gym <em>or</em> basketball practice, which had infinitely aided in Maya and Lucas getting set and off on their Date early enough. They couldn’t forget what was to come after, but they weren’t about to let the thought lead them away from enjoying<em> their</em> Date. Maya absolutely wouldn’t let that happen. She had planned it this time, and unlike Lucas, she had the last few months to learn from, not only past experiences but also their altered relationship, not just friends, best friends, anymore, but boyfriend and girlfriend along with it. She knew what worked for them, though it in no way stopped her from knowing they could reach beyond that zone. They’d had plenty of little lowercase dates. Now they deserved that uppercase.</p><p> </p><p>He still insisted on coming to pick her up, and so he arrived, finding her in a dress of red and gold, her ever lengthening hair brought into a great braid. Meanwhile, in answer to her request, he had donned the infamous hat she had wanted him to wear. Her grin had seemed to make it worth it at once. They had only just seen each other a moment before they both brandished their umbrellas – though the forecast was all sun – and they laughed at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, I’m not taking any chances, alright?” she told him. He had the same feeling, and so they left with their umbrellas, something which, unbeknownst to them at this time, would in itself become a tradition they made for themselves. “Ready to go?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure… where are we going?” he gave her a curious look.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, well for that…” she held up her hand, moving to quickly look out the window before turning to him. “Our ride’s here,” she declared. He went to see, only to find a car waiting… with his grandfather stood outside next to the open door. “Santa’s elf privileges,” Maya smirked.</p><p> </p><p>They climbed into the backseat of the car, where Maya had instructed Lucas to close his eyes and keep them closed until she told him to open them. It had made the ride interesting, as Maya guarded him with great intent, at times plastering her hands over his eyes, his protests making her laugh, which in turn made him less intent on resisting.</p><p> </p><p>When the car had finally come to a stop, Maya had helped him out of the car, a complicated maneuver in itself, nearly ending in his faceplanting before she’d steadied him. Finally, she told him he could open his eyes. When he did, he saw they were in front of the museum.</p><p> </p><p>“I know we did see that other exhibit in the end, but it never felt like we made up for that night. So, I talked to your mom…” He turned to her. “I did,” she nodded. “And she pulled some strings that would put Asher and his connections to shame, I mean your mom is kind of a Rockstar. Come on,” she pulled him along and they went through the doors, only to find the usually semi-bustling entrance hall practically vacant, save for one or two people, along with a sign that declared the museum was closed for a private event that night.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, but we can’t, there’s a…” he started to say, before seeing the look on her face. “Wait…”</p><p> </p><p>“Basically, we have the place for ourselves,” she revealed. “Not bad for a couple ninth graders, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>It had been something of a debate at first. She’d had the idea almost as soon as he’d gone away on Saturday, and she knew she’d have to act fast. It could have seemed uneven, her being the artist and all, but in their time together and before, she had seen him grow to genuinely appreciate this world, and it had become something they shared. Adding to it how the last Date had gone… It had to be. Plus, she knew how upset Mrs. Friar had been about what had happened that time, so she would be all too glad to throw her influence around for Lucas and her. So, Maya had called her immediately, while she knew Lucas was not there to hear either sides of the conversation. As predicted, Melinda Friar had told her to consider it a done deal. Lucas and her, they’d get to walk through every one of those exhibits, while they’d be the sole two visitors. It would be an experience unmatched.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0314"><h2>314. Her Reflection on Better</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Naturally, they hadn’t been completely alone as they made their tour of the museum. They had an escort with them, though the woman (Lucas had met her before at an event with his parents) had kept her distance and allowed them to enjoy this casual stroll.</p><p> </p><p>Their favorite part might have been getting to sit on the floor, facing the painting that had so charmed them the very first time, which was part of the permanent collection. They must have sat there a good twenty minutes, Maya with her head on his shoulder, as Lucas had his arm around hers, both of them speaking in hushed tones in the great stillness of the empty museum.</p><p> </p><p>When finally they had left the museum, Maya only briefly allowed herself to confirm that they were still on schedule as far as the event of later that night before focusing on what was to come for Lucas and her. She’d known that by having the museum part first – which had been necessary in order to even get to do it – they would get out of there and just be starving.</p><p> </p><p>The car and its driving Pappy Joe were there waiting again, and so Maya and Lucas climbed back inside, where the boy was once again made to shut his eyes in order to create the surprise until they reached their destination. Now, when he was told to open his eyes again, he found himself standing… near his grandfather’s house. The man said nothing, only smirked and pointed the way as Maya already had Lucas’ arm ready to pull along.</p><p> </p><p>Under the cover of a strung-up canvas, they sat, and Lucas was shown how Maya had previously stashed a portable DVD player – borrowed from Nadine. And in the next minute, Pappy Joe brought the pizza just now delivered, which he left for them before departing.</p><p> </p><p>“I know it’s our “capital-D Date,” but I don’t see why we have to knock our little lowercase ones either. ‘Pizza and a movie’ <em>has</em> treated us very well. Now we’re giving it a bit of a capital-U Upgrade,” she gestured at the set up, which made him smile. “So, you like it?” she asked. She had been so nervous despite herself, knowing the plans were in her hands. What if it wasn’t big enough?</p><p> </p><p>“I love it,” he assured her, and she beamed, kissing him briefly before opening the pizza box and turning on the DVD player.</p><p> </p><p>They could easily have watched two movies, three movies, maybe more, sat huddled there under the canvas and the deepening skies. They had made quick work of the pizza, as was so often the case. Maya had been correct in saying how their pizza/movie dates had become a staple between them. Even the way they worked through the pizza felt like some choreographed dance they performed at each of their dates.</p><p> </p><p>Once the pizza had been dealt with, they had focused solely on the movie. The position they adopted was just as common now, as Maya moved until she could lean her back against him like some great cowboy shaped couch, and he would wrap his arms around her like that couch had grown arms to entrap her; she saw no need to ‘escape,’ ever. Every so often a part of the movie would agitate her, and he would settle her by covering her eyes or kissing the top of her head. Sometimes, it might have been that she exaggerated these outbursts, the better for him to intervene.</p><p> </p><p>That night, as they sat there, his arms closed around her, Maya felt like she surely had to be living in a dream, except no… In dreams, she couldn’t feel his heart beating, her ear so close to it as it was. She was wide awake, and she was spending Valentine’s Day with the boy who had her own heart keeping the rhythm it did now. Could <em>he</em> feel her heart as she felt his?</p><p> </p><p>At one time, she just had to tilt her head back and look at him. It wasn’t long that he saw her looking and met her gaze, but in those seconds before… She could see how content he was, too. How far they’d come, the girl who’d lost her world and the boy who had lost his place in his own. Now they both knew who they were and where they belonged, and that had been their doing.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” he smiled, looking down at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” she replied, looking up. “I’m really glad we decided to try this again.” He was, too. Now more than ever, they had done what they’d wanted to do for so long, and they would remember it. “You know, this movie’s a lot scarier than I thought it’d be.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a comedy… in a high school,” he pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, comedy’s scary, and high school? Don’t get me started, there’s…” She didn’t have to carry on the charade much longer, as he leaned in to kiss her, the arms wrapped around her now feeling less of a means to keep her steady and more of a need to keep her close. She kissed him back, feeling that rhythm in her heart liven up even more. The more it got to happen, the more it would seem she never wanted it to stop. Sooner or later, they would have to, of course, but for now she was floating and anchored all at once; she had his arms for that.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0315"><h2>315. Her Reflection on Rings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya had known before they’d started the movie that, by the time it would be over, they would be well on time to put their other plans in motion, and so she didn’t worry. All she did was watch a movie, in peace, in her boyfriend’s arms. When the credits rolled, she turned her head and held on to his arms as though to say, ‘I’m good here, I don’t need to go anywhere, and I don’t want to.’ The way Lucas’ hold remained, the way he rested his head against hers, the response was clear: he was good here, too.</p><p> </p><p>A few minutes later though, when the DVD menu came back up, the thought renewed for the both of them that they had things to do. With a sigh, Maya had reached for her phone. She hadn’t looked at it once since the movie had started, and silenced as it had been, the notification that she had seven texts waiting came as a shock, especially when she saw they were all from Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait…” she sat up, so fast that Lucas barely managed not to get headbutted. Maya opened the messages, and all at once she knew that, while Lucas and she had been having a great, peaceful time, Shawn had not. “Oh no…” she muttered.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Lucas asked, sitting forward to look over her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“All the plans are falling apart. I mean I guess that’s what we get for trying to pull anything on Valentine’s Day… and a lot of it <em>had</em> to be kind of last minute, but… We messed it all up, Shawn’s proposal…” Maya sighed, her little happiness bubble beginning to feel like it might burst.</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s not,” Lucas insisted, putting his hands on her shoulders. “A few things fell through, but we had the backup for a reason, didn’t we?”</p><p> </p><p>“The backup…” she breathed, looking back at him. He reached to his side, where he’d laid his hat, and he brought it to rest on her head, fixing it properly.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” he smiled when she smiled. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>One call to Shawn later, they were back in Pappy Joe’s car to go and meet the nervous wreck that was the man seeking Katy Hart’s hand. It seemed he, like Maya, had forgotten about the backup plan they had instigated in the panic brought out of their crumbling plan A. And like Maya, remembering they had an alternative had returned some natural breath to him. He would meet them where he was meant to go, while Maya called in the cavalry.</p><p> </p><p>Maya and Lucas were dropped off at the Hart house. After thanking Pappy Joe and seeing him off, the two had looked to each other. They would need to stall, for somewhere about half an hour. Maya was already thinking up some ways to do that when Lucas caught her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait… I almost forgot,” he said, blinking, as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small box wrapped in paper. When he handed it to her, she couldn’t hide her own forgetfulness; he had forgotten to give his, and <em>she</em> had forgotten to bring hers altogether. It would still be sitting on the bench at the window.</p><p> </p><p>“Hold that thought… I know how we can stall. That is… if you’re willing to take a risk…” Clearly, the look on her face must not have been very encouraging, going off the look he gave in return. “You’ll be fine, I swear.”</p><p> </p><p>Maya led him up to her window, where she pushed it open and climbed through and motioned for him to follow. Once they both sat, she swiftly put the forgotten present in his hand. He opened it to find a playing card game, and not just any. He had told her about how he used to love playing it as a kid and had tried to find it for months, it had been a nag in her mind, she had to find it. She’d meant to give it to him for Christmas, but she hadn’t found it in time.</p><p> </p><p>When she opened her box, she found it held a bracelet. She couldn’t say how much he’d put into this, and that would not have been what mattered. All that did matter was that she saw it, and she found it beautiful, and she knew it had come from him. He fastened it around her wrist, and she kissed him in thanks.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I had a good time tonight,” she told him, her face still a hair’s breadth from his, though she spoke just loud enough that someone out in the living room or kitchen would hear. “I think we can keep this up, capital Dates every once in a while, lowercase ones the rest of the…”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya… Lucas… You’re back,” her mother’s voice sounded at the door. Lucas tensed; Maya tried not to smile, turning to face her mother. She did feel just a bit bad about whatever thought she might have put in her mother’s head, but it served its purpose.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother didn’t lecture so much as covertly interrogate them about their night, what they’d done, where they’d been, who’d been there with them… Maya was happy to go into detail, though when the phone rang, there was some relief about her being able to stop.</p><p> </p><p>The call was from Hildy. There was a problem at the theater, an emergency, she was needed right away. When she told Maya about this, Maya turned it around, saying she and Lucas could sit and wait for her return. Katy insisted that they come along.</p><p> </p><p>Hildy was waiting outside to lead them in, going in so fast they could barely keep up with what she was saying. It wouldn’t matter in a minute, and once they’d made it into the actual auditorium, Maya decided she was glad all the other plans had fallen out. This was really all they needed, and if she needed convincing, she only needed to turn and look at her mother stood next to her, at the dazed look of confused wonderment that was locked in her.</p><p> </p><p>They’d all rallied so well in the little time they’d had to enact the backup plan. Hildy, Riley, Dylan, Asher, that had been the cavalry, not wanting to interrupt any others’ Valentine’s Day plans. But when they walked in, those four were also joined by Cory and Topanga, Mr. &amp; Mrs. Orlando, and Mr. &amp; Mrs. Garcia. So, it was ten of them responsible for the lights, the flowers… Well, eleven, counting the man stood waiting on the stage.</p><p> </p><p><em>That was where they were, the first time I knew something was starting with them…</em> Maya thought. <em>Only </em>she<em> was on the stage, and he was the one down here…</em></p><p> </p><p>“Mom, go on,” she spoke quietly, standing by her. Katy turned to look at her, and Maya gave a grin, nodding to the stage. “Come on,” she gave her a little nudge, and her mother started to walk, slow at first, then gaining in some assurance. When she reached the steps, he was there, holding out his hand to help her up. As she went, Maya looked to Lucas, her own anticipation barely contained anymore. They would approach as the others did. All along it had been the work of three people, and in the end, it had been that of so many more. But it was right. They were surrounded by friends, family…</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t take long for Maya to feel herself welling up, as Shawn started talking to her mother, and as he went on, the tears did fall, dripping over her smile. Riley had one of her hands at once; Lucas had the other just as soon, her best friends there with her to see the moment Shawn Hunter presented Katy Hart with an engagement ring and asked her to marry him, asked to be a family with her, with Maya.</p><p> </p><p>The wait had not been more than three seconds, and yet Maya was sure she didn’t breathe through a single one of those. She watched, she waited, hoping at each turn that the wait would end.</p><p> </p><p>When Katy said yes, Maya was so relieved, so stunned, and without knowing how she’d landed there, the next thing she knew, she had her mother and Shawn embracing her. She held on to them, her mother, and the man who had become her father long ago.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0316"><h2>316. Their Beginning in Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Even weeks after the night Katy and Shawn had become engaged to one another, Maya still felt that feeling deep down, just a bit. That feeling… that sort of complete elation… It was one thing already that this thing, this dream of so many years in her life had come to pass, but it was happening in what could be the best way. And more than that, the thing that clinched it, that always would, no matter how much time passed, was that she wasn’t afraid it’d fall apart.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn was still in Austin with them. The date had been set for April, just a little over a month away, and he wouldn’t be heading back to Philadelphia before then. The wedding plans were starting to take shape and working at those would sooner or later bring memories of those – failed – proposal plans.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t taken long for Maya to let her mother in on all of it, the secrets, the distractions, down to the night of the proposal itself, Maya’s little trick with Lucas in her room, letting her mother catch them. Katy would try and play it off like she hadn’t been concerned about anything, and Maya would pretend, too, that she was buying it.</p><p> </p><p>What Maya loved to see the most was her mother, and Shawn, together but also on their own. Shawn was being so… involved now. He already had been, of course, for as long as he’d been in their lives, but this felt different. For so long, for as close as he’d been to them, he was on the outside looking in, but now… now he had come through the door. He was where he belonged. And in these weeks, the longest he’d been with them at any one time, he had melded so easily into their lives, as more than a visitor…</p><p> </p><p>And her mother, oh her mother… Maya didn’t know that she’d completely let go of that smile she had begun on February 14<sup>th</sup>. She was in such a good mood and, a couple years back, Maya might have tried and taken advantage of it. That was all in the past though, wasn’t it? This was her new life, and in her new life she could neither want nor to ask for more than to keep on seeing her mother being happy this way. She couldn’t know exactly what it meant to her, this proposal, this engagement. Maya knew what it meant for herself of course, but for her mother, for Shawn… She could only know so much, and the rest… That was for their own private hearts to hold.</p><p> </p><p>Every new day that came along, knowing that from now on this was their reality, that it wasn’t about visits anymore and that their two lives would become the parts of a whole… Every new day was just as thrilling as the last. It was getting to sink in, even as it had been growing and would continue to, that they were becoming a family. They had been one already, and now it was even better.</p><p> </p><p>The two of them at her games, that might have been one of her favorite things. Anyone else might have been embarrassed, mortified, but those people might have become used to seeing their two parents there shouting, putting on a show of themselves in support of their kids, but to Maya it was something new, something she legitimately couldn’t get enough of. Maybe it was like her good luck charm, because the girls’ team hadn’t lost one game since the engagement.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn had also been getting to know her friends more, their families, too. Somehow Mrs. Friar had roped him into taking a portrait of her, Mr. Friar, and Lucas, as soon as she’d known he was a photographer, but now finally she had convinced him. Maya had of course insisted to see that… or to be there, as she’d said. Standing by, seeing the expressions on Lucas’ face in particular had been the best.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn had gotten to show her more with the camera, too. They had made a dark room in the basement and everything. Learning to develop those might have been her favorite part. Seeing those faces bloom up was just magic, every time. If things kept up this way, she would really need to rearrange some parts of her wall display; she’d already run out of space.</p><p> </p><p>In just over a month, her parents would be married. That was what it always came back to. Maya was to pull double duty that day. She would be her mother’s maid of honor, but she would also walk her down the aisle. It had been her mother’s choice on both counts, and when she’d asked her if she would do it, Maya doubted she even needed to speak her acceptance, with the look that came to her face, but she spoke it anyway. And she took her two roles very seriously.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted the two of them to have the wedding they deserved, and she would see to it that they did. This meant at times having to argue out one choice or another with the best man, which might have been awkward for others, seeing as the best man was her teacher, but Maya had been holding her own over Cory Matthews for years already, and that wasn’t about to stop now. They would work together just fine.</p><p> </p><p>One month, a bit more… thirty-eight days and counting… and Maya <em>was</em> counting, every day between now and the beginning of everything else.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0317"><h2>317. Their Beginning in Stability</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the morning, like every school morning, bright and early, there would be Lucas, come to pick her up, to walk to Riley’s and then to school. He had been doing so now, without fail, since October. Well, there had been that one day in January where he’d been out sick, but he had still called her to let her know he wouldn’t be there. In other times, she might have opted to flat out skip school, claim illness and gone to stay with him, but these times were not those times, and Lucas would not want her to jeopardize her progress anymore than she would. Still, the moment she’d finished school that day she’d hurried off to see him.</p><p> </p><p>For as long as they’d been carrying on this morning routine, she could see he’d adjusted to it. He had needed to get up earlier in the morning than he would before, and she could see it in his eyes, how much he’d struggled against that early rise, where she’d long been used to it. That had changed now; he was used to it, too. It had gotten the two of them dubbed the Early Birds by some of their friends.</p><p> </p><p>They’d been together now for over four months. No matter how many times she remembered it, it hadn’t stopped being astounding. Four months, and not the slightest twinge of a crack between them. They were as happy now as they could hope to be. Sometimes it left her wondering how it could have turned out if they’d made their start in January of the year before. Would she be standing as she did that morning, reminiscing on fourteen months of happiness with him, or would it have been the way of the very scenario which had held her back all along? She could never know for sure, and so the best she could do was not to make herself think about it more than she had to. What mattered was her reality, and her reality was four months with the boy who held her hand as they walked like she was the most precious thing he’d ever held.</p><p> </p><p>“You guys have that big test next week, right?” he asked as they walked. The big test… the barrier between her and holding her promise to Nadine, between her and that advanced placement next year.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t remind me,” she groaned as they walked. Lucas was quiet for a moment, then…</p><p> </p><p>“You know my Uncle Walt, with the horses?” he asked all of a sudden, in a voice that suggested a chosen redirection of subject away from the test, and she nodded with a smile. “One of them is about to give birth and I’m supposed to go and help. Do you want to come?” he offered, then off her look, “After the test, unless it comes early.”</p><p> </p><p>“If it’s after, then sure,” she replied. “It’s going to be gross, isn’t it?” He laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“A bit at first, yes, but then it gets so much better,” he explained. “We might even get to name it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, a name for a horse, I’ll have to think about that,” she put on a pondering face. “Great, now I’ll have that in my brain,” she frowned to herself, though she just as quickly reassured him she didn’t mind it, even if her brain was presently being overrun with studies and reviews in preparation for the test.</p><p> </p><p>“The mom’s name is Juniper,” he told her, hoping it would help. At the very least, it got her smiling. “I was there when <em>she</em> was born, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“The legacy horse,” she grinned at that.</p><p> </p><p>“The legacy horse,” he repeated with a nod.</p><p> </p><p>They kept talking about horses as they walked, and Maya was as thankful to him for keeping her mind away from stresser topics as Lucas was thankful that it worked. She was already on the verge of a stress blow out with this test coming up, and then there was her parents’ wedding, which had to go just right… Talking about horses with him might have been the best thing she could have asked for.</p><p> </p><p>And that was just the kind of guy he was, wasn’t it… and one of the things that had made her fall for him. He could cut through the madness of the world, take her hand, and hold it, passing on strength, tranquility… stability… She was grateful to that and to him, every time, and she never really had to say that she was, she could just look at him, and he would look back at her, and he would know.</p><p> </p><p>She did hope the newborn horse wouldn’t make its arrival until after her test. She wanted to see it come, to share that with Lucas. Maybe holding on to the prospect of that moment would give her a bit more relief as they went, closer and closer to that test. She hadn’t really expressed how much it weighed on her, the closer it got…</p><p> </p><p>Lucas gave her hand a squeeze, stopping her in time to see she’d been about to walk right past the Matthews’ house. He tipped his head. Was she okay?</p><p> </p><p>“Horse names,” she shrugged, willing a smile to come up on her face. He said nothing, didn’t have to. She knew he knew she hadn’t been thinking about horse names.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0318"><h2>318. Their Beginning in Academia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the weekend came around, so did the surge of stress Maya had anticipated. The test would take place on Tuesday afternoon, and so the next few days would be crucial. She’d get no better chance at really focusing on this, and realizing that, it had felt like some great heaping block had come smashing on to her shoulders. This was it… She had to pull together, or else all her work would have been for nothing.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine had slept over the night before, as she would tonight again, and the night after that, so that they would leave for school together on Monday. They had decided this would be the best way to get everything done with little disruption to their work.</p><p> </p><p>But then Saturday morning had come, and with it the block on her shoulders. It almost felt physical, like she couldn’t quite move. She just stared at the ceiling, stared, and stared some more. She’d been snapped out of this by a doorbell, followed by her mother’s call to inform her Lucas was here. Block or no block, she scrambled out of her bed, stepping past Nadine – awake in her sleeping bag and reading her notes – and went out to find he was really there.</p><p> </p><p>“You know we don’t have school this morning, right?” she asked, though she followed this by moving to put her arms around him. Now he held her, and though the block still weighed on her, she felt some relief, as though he was helping her support it.</p><p> </p><p>“I know. I figured you might need… something, anything today. Consider me at your service,” he announced. Maya breathed out, looking up at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Time machine to Tuesday after the test?” she asked. He at the very least gave the impression to be thinking about it. “I guess you just being here will have to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re so sweet,” he teased.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but I mean it. Wait here, I’ll go get changed.” As she returned to her room, leaving Lucas to her mother and Shawn, she found Nadine now dressed, and still reading quietly. She was already in the zone, ready to tackle the workload. This was who Nadine had always been; this was who Maya was trying to become…</p><p> </p><p>Lucas showing up had briefly distracted her from the rest of what she had to deal with, but then sitting to breakfast, five of them around the table, all she could see was Nadine across from her, reading on, undisturbed by the process of eating through her plate. Maya felt like she was on automatic, eating the food while her mind was somewhere else. She could hear nothing around herself, only the thumping of her heart crashing in her ears.</p><p> </p><p>Was she fooling herself? Thinking she could rise this high? She had improved in these near on three years, she really had, but maybe there was a limit to how high… The air felt so thin around her… What if she forgot everything? What if they realized she was a fraud?</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, she must have spaced out somewhere in the middle of breakfast, because the next thing she knew, the plates were gone, and there were books all around, including in front of her. She had to study, the test was in three days, she couldn’t fail, she couldn’t… concentrate… couldn’t make sense of letters and numbers, words… Her head felt like it would split at any moment, taking with it this supposed new version of herself she had nurtured in this place, leaving in its place that angry wisecracker of a girl she’d been in New York.</p><p> </p><p>She closed her eyes, had to. She had to shut out everything now, the people, the books, everything. Why had she done this? She’d made a deal with Nadine, to keep her on the team, she had, but still… When had she ever made a deal which she didn’t believe herself even remotely capable of upholding? Even if it was at the top of a steep mountain, she had climbed how many already? She could climb more. She could climb this one. Maybe she’d be inching up on her hands and knees, clawing at the ground to keep herself from tumbling back down, but if it was what she had to do, she’d do it.</p><p> </p><p>She had set herself this challenge, but it <em>wasn’t</em> impossible. It didn’t have to be.</p><p> </p><p>Maya opened her eyes, took a breath, looked at the notebook sitting in front of her. Had she really not recognized her own handwriting a moment ago? She had taken these notes, and she remembered them. Better yet, she understood them.</p><p> </p><p>It was a slow process going forward, not a sudden switch, but Maya didn’t need speed, only endurance. One step and then another.</p><p> </p><p>Bit by bit, the day went on, and Maya and Nadine would be supported and assisted by Katy, Shawn, and Lucas, like some great academic pit crew. By the time Shawn had driven Lucas home and the girls had gone to bed, Maya was spent, but also, she was not nearly as weighed down as she’d been some hours before. The stress had not left her entirely, but she had learned to bear some of its weight.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0319"><h2>319. Their Beginning in Assistance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The great weekend plan had come undone early Sunday morning. Nadine had been recalled home to look after her sisters so her parents could go and look in on and stay with her grandfather, who’d suddenly taken ill. Maya had been ready to go with her, but Nadine had pointed out – rightly so – that she was used to working through the chaos of the littler Zhu girls, while Maya needed not to be caught up in that. So, she had to find an alternative.</p><p> </p><p>Thus, she had found her way at the Matthews’ door soon after, with all her study material, so she might call on the teacher, the ace student, and her best friend of old. They had answered the call at once and let her in to join them.</p><p> </p><p>How many times had she done schoolwork at Riley’s over the years? Back in the early days, and all through the time when that home was in New York, it had generally felt like she would always want to be anywhere else but in that place, surrounded by people who did and had done better than her, always, not wanting to see disappointment in their faces. Truthfully, she never even really saw any of that, not from them. For some reason she couldn’t understand at the time, they had this belief in them that she could do better. <em>She</em> never saw it in herself though, so it was no good…</p><p> </p><p>Then when it had been <em>this</em> home, in Austin, it was all different. <em>She</em> was different. She was Maya Hart the… the lost, the reborn… And now she knew they’d been right all along. She <em>could</em> do better, she had. Then that meant she’d squandered those years before, hadn’t she? No… She wouldn’t think that. She had grown, she had become who she was able of becoming, because of who she’d been.</p><p> </p><p>She would be amused, over and over, seeing the way Mr. Matthews continued to show how impressed he was that she was that same girl whose assignments he used to look at with confusion. He was proud of her, and so was Topanga… so was Riley… And for the place they’d all held in her life over the years, she was happy to see that pride.</p><p> </p><p>She needed them now more than ever, as she would attempt to jump this hurdle, possibly the tallest in her life to this point, requiring that she somehow, miraculously, grow the wings that would carry her over. And they answered the call.</p><p> </p><p>All through the day, the last one she had before she once again had to divide her attention with school, she worked through the material she needed to cover. The methods she had been handed, from yesterday’s session with her parents, with Nadine and Lucas, differed from today’s with the Matthews family, and as confusing as it could all have been, she could pinpoint almost exactly the moment where she got to feeling that… maybe she was going to get through this. Oh, it was a terrifying sort of thought all on its own, how could it not? No matter how she’d changed, grown, there would always be reasons to be cautious.</p><p> </p><p>At the end of the day, Mr. Matthews had driven her home. When the car had pulled up in front of the house, rather than to reach for the handle, she had turned to her teacher. He looked back at her, expectant of whatever she had to ask.</p><p> </p><p>“That old teacher of yours, Feeny, you talk to him a lot?” It had not been what he’d expected, clearly, but he smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I call, every week or two… or <em>he</em> calls me,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>“He had that big of an influence on you, huh. You became a teacher, was it because of him?”</p><p> </p><p>“Some of it,” he replied. “The rest was me, where I saw myself, what I saw myself doing in the world.” She smiled, slowly nodding.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I’m glad you’re doing it. No matter how much I could not like being in school before, I never liked it more than I did when I got to look to the front of the class and see you were my teacher,” she revealed. He didn’t speak, though he smiled, the kind that left her to wonder. “You gonna cry, Matthews?” He laughed, shook his head. “Yeah, see, I don’t believe you,” she teased. “I’m just going to go now, let you have your good cry in private, yeah. See you in the morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Maya, hold up,” he called as she opened the door. Without having to look, she knew what he wanted to say, and rather than have him say it, she turned back and gave him a hug. He chuckled, hugged her back, and soon she was out of the car and heading into her house.</p><p> </p><p>In no time, she was getting ready for bed, the next night, and even as she did this, her head was back on those days to come, tomorrow, Tuesday… Why couldn’t it be over already? When that test was done… Well, it wouldn’t all be over, but still, that hurdle would be behind her and whatever came next… she’d have done that.</p><p> </p><p>Her phone vibrated at her side just as she finished brushing her teeth. She looked at the screen. <em>Basement</em>. With a smile, she grabbed the phone and snuck off into the basement where she awaited Lucas’ call.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0320"><h2>320. Their Beginning in Stress</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had promised her this call on their walk that morning. When she’d opened the door, she looked so distracted, he could see the panic of the test being the next day, right in her eyes. So, he’d told her he would call that night, so she could go to sleep, hopefully, with her mind at ease.</p><p> </p><p>The code had been created for them a while ago without really needing to say it in so many words. He’d texted her. <em>‘Basement.’</em> No response had meant they were good to go, so he’d called her. The more the day had gone on, he’d felt the need had never been more evident, that she was still deep in the throes of her stress.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” she spoke in greeting. The tone in her voice told him she still hadn’t forgotten the moment of embarrassment she’d felt in basketball practice. He’d been in the stands at the time, he’d seen her stood out there, that look on her face clearly showing her mind was far from the gym, back in her review. He couldn’t have caught her attention when he saw her coach was frowning in her direction if he’d tried. Then she’d been bumped out of her thoughts, and when the coach had called her name, she’d thrown back a rather harsh ‘What?’ She’d caught herself immediately, apologized, but she’d had to run laps for it anyway.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be over this time tomorrow,” he reminded her. She made a noise in reply he could only interpret as ‘yeah, yeah, I know.’ Before he could reply, he felt something bump against his leg and looked down to find an eager little dog staring back at him with an equally eager tail wagging about. Lucas sat on the ground and Dash hopped on to his lap, the better to get ear scratches. “I could try and sneak Dash in,” he joked. At the sound of her name, the dog barked.</p><p> </p><p>“Like there’s any chance she won’t get busted as soon as a bell rings,” Maya laughed. She had a point. “Wouldn’t mind seeing that little face though,” she admitted after a beat.</p><p> </p><p>“What if I bring her along tomorrow, but I leave her at your house for the day?” he offered. Maya and her mother had ‘dog sat’ for him before. “We can get her back to my place tomorrow night.”</p><p> </p><p>“Deal,” she agreed. He heard just the slightest cheerful upturn in her voice, and it encouraged him. “I am so going to oversleep tomorrow… O-or I’ll get sick all of a sudden, I…” The downturn was swift, and he shook his head, as though she could even see him. Dash barked.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, you got this.” Again, she muttered. “I’m not just saying it, you know I wouldn’t do that.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re saying you’d tell me if you thought I would faceplant?” she inquired.</p><p> </p><p>“Politely,” he hesitated. “At lunch today, I quizzed you, you didn’t miss one. You saw the look on Asher’s face when you rattled off that last answer?” There was a pause, then a small chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that was good,” she admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“And so are you.” He meant it, every word. He had seen her, all these months, preparing for this moment. How many study sessions had he sat in on, watching her work, and work, and work, meeting the challenge she had set herself. If he wasn’t sure it might put more pressure on her to succeed he would have told her how impressed he’d been, how proud he’d grown, how confident he was that she would knock it out of the park tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p>“And so are you,” she repeated, for him. “Kind of wish you were here right now. Which is not a suggestion for you to sneak out of the house, just…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” he replied, absently playing with the giddy pup. “Hang on,” he pulled his phone from his ear and switched to video. A moment later, there was her face, smiling back at him. “Compromise?”</p><p> </p><p>“Works for me,” she nodded. Lucas picked up the dog, pulling her into view. She barked at the sight of her ‘other favorite human,’ as Zay had once called Maya in seeing how Dash reacted to her presence. “Hey, hey, doggo,” Maya crooned, though she did sneak a look to the basement door. It wasn’t as though they needed to go sneaking around, they knew, it was just all sort of… routine now.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re okay now?” Lucas asked her after setting Dash back down. He didn’t want to think of her tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Then <em>he’d</em> be unable to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>“As I’ll ever be,” she sighed, rubbing at her face with a sigh. “Sooner I get to sleep, sooner it’ll be over, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” he nodded. “See you tomorrow morning?” She nodded back, touched her fingers to her lips and held out her hand to the screen. He returned the gesture, a kiss returned through the distance, and they hung up. Lucas stood from the ground, returning to his room with the dog at his heels. It was almost over. For her sake, he truly hoped his faith had not been misplaced. But if she did fail… well, he’d be there.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0321"><h2>321. Their Beginning in Encouragement</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya woke up feeling much more rested than she ever anticipated she would be on this day, to the point where she suspected she’d been so exhausted by studying and stress that she’d been pulled into sleep by sheer necessity. Of course, now it was time to face facts: it was test day.</p><p> </p><p>Dragging her feet out of her room, she expected to find no one around, as usual at this time. Instead, there were her mother and Shawn, sitting at the table, their chatter ceasing and turning to her at once. The way they cheerfully greeted her, exaggerated as it was, she knew the mission they had assigned themselves that morning was clear: they would be there, to see her off in as good of a mood as she could ever be made to be. She played into it, almost had to really.</p><p> </p><p>She knew when Lucas was arriving, not too long after, when she heard a distinct bark outside. Maya went and opened the door, a moment later greeted gleefully by the small Dash, who tried to jump into her arms before she could even reach for her. She might never have been so happy to see that dog… It did make her feel a thrill of joy to be holding the jolly pet who gave herself fully to how glad she was to be held by her.</p><p> </p><p>“She practically walked <em>me</em> here once she figured out where we were going.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s because she’s a very smart, good girl,” Maya declared, looking at the dog still snug in her arms before turning back to her boyfriend. “And so are you… boy,” she assured him.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” he bowed his head with a smirk.</p><p> </p><p>For a little while they sat and played with the dog, letting Maya absorb as much of its presence as she could to carry her through the day. Dash would still be here waiting when she came home; she had to remember that, too.</p><p> </p><p>Sooner rather than later though, they had to leave Dash to Katy and Shawn and go to school. The jolt of remembering she was now just a few hours away from the test gave her a shake, but she wasn’t afraid, not like before. She wasn’t without fear, but it was in no way as overpowering as it had been a couple days before. Now she just needed it to… be over already. Then she’d have to wait on the results, and <em>that</em> would be something else, but this was not yet the time for <em>that</em> panic, was it?</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had wished her luck by pushing into the palm of her hand the lucky twisted penny. She’d had it for as long as Maya could remember, and she’d heard the story of how she’d found it when she was a little girl herself, and how it had never failed her, which by this point Maya couldn’t help but doubt just a bit. Still, she took the penny. Shawn, for his part, told her he was proud of her, that even before she’d taken the test, he was feeling it would go well. He would never think any less, she knew, but at the same time to see him here, expressing that blind faith of a parent, she appreciated the sentiment.</p><p> </p><p>With Dash left in her parents’ care, Maya took off for Riley’s with Lucas at her side. It was more or less her last chance to express any amount of doubt, of uncertainty, to someone, without being crowded at all sides, but the thing was that she didn’t feel she had to. She was in a good place, and it would all be over soon.</p><p> </p><p>“Is the day over yet? Can I go play with the dog again?” Maya asked with a frown. He turned to look at her. “Alright, I’m alright,” she promised.</p><p> </p><p>Morning was going to be hard and she knew. Already she was confident enough to declare she wouldn’t retain anything in her classes. It hadn’t been true in the end, but even so, it wasn’t her best ‘performance.’</p><p> </p><p>The test was to take place after lunch. Maya didn’t know how she managed to eat a bite of the food, with how far her thoughts were, but she surprised herself and finished it all. Less than an hour until the test now… oh…</p><p> </p><p>All those of them sitting the test had to report to the gym now. Maya and Nadine rose to their feet at their table, cheered on by their friends and boyfriends, who saw them off on their way. They would finish before the end of the day, but they <em>were</em> exempt from all afternoon classes, which could come in handy. For Maya at least, it gave her the option to leave here when she was done, to go and play with rapid little Dash until Lucas joined her again.</p><p> </p><p>Maya turned to Nadine as they walked, and the girl, her friend, her teammate, presented a hand which Maya clasped. They would get through this together. They each had their reasons to take this test. Maya had thought she knew why <em>she</em> did it, she <em>thought</em> she did. It <em>was</em> for Nadine, in part, to keep her promise, but it was for herself, too, maybe more than anything, anyone. She wanted to see that she could make it there, that her work had all been for something.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0322"><h2>322. Their Beginning in Discovery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She swore she felt that weight lifted from her shoulders, physically felt it, like the slightest gust of wind could have carried her off. The day was over, for her at least. The test, the head splitter, it was done. Now she had a week to wait for the results, and much as it would be its own kind of stress, it would be a breeze compared to everything leading up to today. Alright, maybe not a breeze, but still…</p><p> </p><p>A couple hours ago, she hadn’t been weightless at all, sitting down at her desk, that test paper put in front of her. But she’d closed her eyes, she’d breathed, and she’d remembered what Shawn had told her that morning before she left home: don’t worry about all the other questions, just do one, then another, work through it. So that was what she’d done. She’d blocked out everything around her, and in her head… she’d been singing. That was Nadine’s contribution, given on Saturday night before they’d gone to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>And then she’d finished it. She hadn’t even realized she was at the end until she saw that she was. She’d blinked, but then she’d straightened up in her seat, and she’d gone back through it all, reread it, little doubt in herself despite having to review those questions she’d struggled with. Don’t second guess yourself, that was Mr. Matthews’ advice, and she’d taken it. Even so, when she had gathered up her things and moved to stand, the juke box in her head turned off, and she could see there were still a fair number of people left. She had expected to be one of the last. Was this good? Was this bad? Should she have taken more time? No, no, she’d done everything as she was meant to do it. She moved up and handed in her test, walked right out.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine was already gone, Maya couldn’t say how long ago, but she knew she’d have gone off home already, so she could stay with her baby sister and then pick up the others from school. The others were still in class, so she was on her own and free to head home. Her parents and her, they had a celebratory dinner to look forward to.</p><p> </p><p>As she walked on toward home, carrying her weightless feet along, she envisioned her future, when she would get those results, yes, but mostly next year, tenth grade. If she didn’t pass the test, she wouldn’t get to follow Nadine into advanced classes, but it wouldn’t mean her friend suddenly would give up on the basketball team. The consequences would be more her own. She would have spent all this time, working so hard to accomplish this, only to come up short. That would hurt, and maybe having to see Nadine move up without her would be painful… Of course, Nadine would pass… Even if she didn’t pass <em>that</em> test though… All this work she’d put in already since the start of the school year, to even get to this point, had brought some results in her 9<sup>th</sup> grade classes. Even if she didn’t get into those advanced classes, she would be doing more than fine.</p><p> </p><p>But she <em>had</em> done all that work, and she <em>had</em> gotten so much better, had gotten to the point where she knew and she understood what she was doing, and that was a win, but it also made some part of her <em>want</em> that bigger win, want to pass that test, follow Nadine, meet that new challenge next year. She knew it would be a lot of work again, but… so what? She’d made it this far, and she was doing fine, juggling it all. All this stress she’d been experiencing, now it felt like that was the old part of her, the one who would never in her wildest dreams expect to find herself in this place. With all this on the line now… how could she fail and be okay with it?</p><p> </p><p>Reaching her house, she had been drawn to look to her bedroom window by the motion of a small dog sitting on the seat at the bay window, wagging that tail: Dash was waiting for her, and when she spotted her from afar, she got even more agitated. With a chuckle, Maya went right to her window instead of the front door. In no time, she had the window open and the dog in her arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’ve been missing <em>you</em>, too!” she promised, under an assault of dog kisses she welcomed after the long day, long week.</p><p> </p><p>She already knew what she would do now. She would take Dash with her, go back to school and wait for classes to let out, joining Lucas as he took the dog back home. Maybe she could ask about inviting him to join the dinner that night. He had been so much a part of all this, too. He had done his best to keep her motivated when it got hard, when the stress was getting to be too much. That she even had Dash in her arms now, as she’d done that morning, filling her with calm instead of concerns, that had been his contribution. She wanted him to be there with them; he’d earned it.</p><p> </p><p>Climbing through into her room, she set the dog down on the ground before shutting the window to make sure the hyper little beast wouldn’t run off, and then she went in search of her mother and Shawn. They must have been out, there was no way Dash’s excitement hadn’t alerted them to her presence. And as predicted, they weren’t in the living room, or the kitchen. Maya sighed, going for her phone back in her bag, in her room.</p><p> </p><p>She was in there when she heard their voices. They must have been in her mother’s… their room, so she had missed them. She could sneak up on them and surprise them… She’d earned a bit of wackiness.</p><p> </p><p>Coming up to the door, she got a peek out there, saw them standing in the kitchen. She could see her mother’s wedding plan binder open on the table, so that must have been what they were doing before she showed up, before they’d been in the other room, but whatever that had been about, Shawn had his phone in his hand, so… maybe he’d gotten a call?</p><p> </p><p>He looked sort of strange though, just… conflicted? And her mother was looking a bit off, too. Suddenly, Maya had a terrible idea. Had something happened to someone? Had someone been hurt, or fallen ill, or… or… It didn’t look like that, did it? No, she didn’t think so. But then what?</p><p> </p><p>They were moving into the living room now, clearly still unaware of her presence. Instinctively, she moved away from her door, the better to remain unseen. It might have been a bit dishonest of her, but she couldn’t help it. Here, now, she could hear them a bit better, could actually make out some words.</p><p> </p><p>New York. She’d definitely heard New York. Oh, what if she’d been right the first time and someone… New York, that could be… Farkle? Smackle? Dash was at her ankles and she picked her up without thinking.</p><p> </p><p>What she heard next at once removed her fears for her friends, but it replaced those instead with a new sort of query.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn had started talking about the magazine he worked for. He had told them how he was moving to Austin, getting married. But what she was hearing now was something about an offer they’d made him, a new job… in New York.</p><p> </p><p>At once it had felt like her heart was the one idling at her ankles, sunk so fast it had turned her to shreds. No… <em>No</em>… Not again…</p><p> </p><p>Without thinking, she quietly moved back to the window, opened it, took her bag and the dog and climbed out, taking off back down the street, walking at first, on automatic, then a little faster, and faster again, and then she was running, not stopping until she was at the bus stop, on the bus… Whether her bringing Dash on there was any issue, she must not have looked like it should be told to her, because they said nothing. Maya stayed on that bus, her head feeling like it wouldn’t stop spinning. Not again, no… not now, not… not again…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0323"><h2>323. Their Fight For Advancement</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas had waited out the rest of the day as patiently as he could, though really all he wanted to do was find Maya and see how things had gone with her and this test. She’d have been done with it for a little while by now, and he had sort of thought she might be out here waiting, so they could go to her house and get Dash, but she wasn’t. Instead, he had a text from her on his phone, from a couple hours before. It said she was on her way to pick up Dash from her house and would wait for him back at his house. So, he said goodbye to the others and started for home.</p><p> </p><p>As much as this had been Maya’s test, he had spent that whole time, as he sat in class, feeling as though he’d been taken with that same sort of crippling anxiety. He knew how much she had worked for this, how much she’d wanted to succeed. Whichever way this all panned out for her, it was bound to influence a lot of what her life would be like in the months to come, in the next school year to come… He wanted to make sure that, no matter what, she’d know he’d be there for her.</p><p> </p><p>He knew she was meant to have dinner with her parents, to celebrate the test being done with, so he didn’t know exactly why she would come to his house instead of his going to hers, but he would hardly argue one way or the other. Maybe she wanted to get away from there for a bit because of all the plans for her parents’ wedding coming up, or she simply wanted to hang out somewhere else.</p><p> </p><p>When his phone rang out of the blue, he stopped and looked at the screen to find it was Maya’s number, the one from home. Unsure if she’d changed her mind without writing back, he answered, only to find it wasn’t Maya at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Lucas? Shawn,” the man greeted him. “Listen, it looks like Maya left the window open in her room and well your dog may have gotten out through there,” he explained, sounding like he might have been outside, searching. Lucas could vaguely hear Maya’s mother in the background calling for Dash.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” was all he could say, suddenly confused. As Shawn went on explaining (for what little attention Lucas gave), Lucas looked at the information he knew. The window was open and the dog was gone, sure, but <em>he</em> also had that text saying that Maya planned to get the dog and bring her to his house, so she must have gotten her and left through the window for some reason, but then why didn’t <em>they</em> know that? Why had Maya snuck out without saying? “Lucas?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I’m here, I… no, it’s alright… I’m almost home, maybe she went there… Yeah, she knows the way… I’ll let you know.”</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t understand what was happening exactly, but he really wanted to get to the bottom of it, so he continued on toward home, quickening his step to the bus stop. He caught it just in time, spending the short ride feeling more and more that he needed to be there, that he needed above all else to find Maya.</p><p> </p><p>He got off the bus and hurried up the street toward his house. He couldn’t see her out front, but as he approached, he heard barking nearby. That was Dash, he knew, and if he needed more proof, as he followed the sound and came up the side of the house toward the yard, the small dog came barrelling toward her buddy.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Dash,” Lucas scooped her up. “You got a lot of people worried about you, huh? Where’s Maya?” Dash barked, and as Lucas set her back down, the dog took off into the yard.</p><p> </p><p>Following her, Lucas watched as the dog scampered toward the shed, the door open. He could just see blond hair through the window. Setting his bag down near the back door, he went to stand just inside the shed.</p><p> </p><p>Maya sat there, her own bag across from her on a bench, while Dash sat in her lap and she scratched at her ears. She looked up now, sensing his presence no doubt.</p><p> </p><p>When he saw the look on her face, as it was, it took him back to that day after the ski trip, only this was different. This one wasn’t about anger, no. She’d been crying… she was <em>still </em>crying. When she saw him, it seemed it only got worse.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” he spoke in a hush, moving to sit with her, and even as he reached to hold her, she was already moving to cling to him. So, he enveloped her in his arms, bowing his head to rest against hers. “It’s going to be okay, it will… I know you think it didn’t go well, but maybe it did, it’s just one test it’s…” She mumbled something, but he couldn’t make it out. “What?” he asked, pulling back a bit.</p><p> </p><p>“Not… not the test,” she spoke clearer now though she wasn’t letting go of him, so he didn’t let go of her.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean? What happened?” he asked, one hand absently running up and down her back like it would make her feel better. He didn’t think he had seen her this upset… ever… which was saying something. It looked like something had gone and broken her.</p><p> </p><p>She wouldn’t talk, not yet, so until she would, until she could, he would keep on sitting here with her, and he would hold her in his arms. She was afraid… he was afraid.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0324"><h2>324. Their Fight For Truth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He thought she might have fallen asleep a couple of times as they sat there; Dash certainly had, across the shed. But she would shift, every so often, or he’d hear her sniffle… He wanted so much to ask her what had happened, but he didn’t see her being ready, so he waited. The wait was only making things worse in his head though. The longer he waited, the more terrible scenarios would coop up in his head, spreading out, growing, infesting his mind. Even so, none of it could have prepared him for what he got when she finally did speak.</p><p> </p><p>“All this time, when we first came, all I ever wanted was to go back to New York…” she spoke, her voice coming out rough, cracked from crying. “I didn’t want it like this.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?” he asked, not understanding. She untangled herself from his arms, sitting up as she looked to her hands in her lap before looking back up at him like she was mustering up courage.</p><p> </p><p>“Shawn got an offer from the magazine he works for, a new job… back in New York.”</p><p> </p><p>The shed fell quiet again, the words sinking in. His back dipped to the shed wall in a moment. Shawn was marrying her mother in a month. He was moving to Austin to be with Maya’s mother and her, he knew it. Maya had told him, he’d be living with them, in their house… in Austin, in this city, where <em>he</em> lived, she… she was in it, too, she…</p><p> </p><p>“You’re… you’re moving back?” he asked, and now his voice was feeling so, so small, too. Her tears burst out again, and he pulled her into his arms once more, only now… now he wasn’t just comforting her about some failing on a test. Now he was holding her because he needed to, to feel that she was still here with him.</p><p> </p><p>“After the test, I went back home to get Dash,” she went on to explain, not moving from his arms. “I could see her at the window, in my room, so I went in there. I thought no one was home, but then they were… They never saw me, I hid… and I heard… I heard Shawn tell my mother about it. I-I couldn’t stay there, so I took Dash, and I went back out the window. I didn’t know where else to go.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad you came here,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Couldn’t go to Riley’s… They all moved out here, maybe not for me but because of me, really. Now what happens after I…” She couldn’t even say it. “You can’t tell her, not yet. Promise.”</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t,” he vowed. His eyes were stinging. He tried to keep it together, he really did, but the more it all sank in, he couldn’t do it. She was going away… she was leaving…</p><p> </p><p>“I have to go home eventually… They’re going to know I know, I… can’t, I mean look at me,” she pulled back, letting him see her face, tear streaked, puffy and red… He kissed her, as sweetly, as lovingly as he ever could. He tried not to think about the rest of it, but how could he not? The way she kissed him back, he couldn’t doubt where her mind was at.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go with you, I’ll walk you home, when you’re ready,” he told her, forehead pressed to hers. He could see so far into her eyes, as far as she could see into his. Her hand came up, her fingers brushing at the tears now escaping him.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she spoke low. “I was going to bring Dash here so you could come to dinner with us…” she revealed, like it was so long ago now, and he could imagine how far away the test must have felt to her; he couldn’t even see how it could all have been today.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be there,” he promised again. “What are you going to tell them?” he asked. She shook her head; she didn’t know. “Are you going to tell them you overheard?” She shook her head again; This one meant no.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s nothing I can do, is there?” she bowed her head. “If I tell them I don’t want to go, either we’ll go anyway and he’ll think I resent him, or we won’t go… and then what’s it going to do to him and my mom, and…” She didn’t want them to be unhappy. Her heart was breaking, but it mattered more to her that she didn’t hurt them… But the two of them, what could they do except feel it all?</p><p> </p><p>With nothing else for them to do, they picked themselves up from the shed and moved back to the house. By some chance, neither of his parents were home and wouldn’t be for a while, so he stood by as Maya worked to return her face to some semblance of being alright. Her hands seemed to move solely of the need to get this done, not by her own will or wish. His own face hardly looked like it could land on anything that looked happy, or at the very least not sad, not torn in two, which was what he was, more and more as the minutes went by.</p><p> </p><p>It all felt like some terrible nightmare, but no… he was wide awake; nightmares didn’t hurt like this. After a while, he just sat, watching her, though his mind was moving all around. He had never felt anything like this before. The only time he’d come close to it was the ski trip’s aftermath when his mistake had almost meant losing her. But now… now…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0325"><h2>325. Their Fight For Fear</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t fair… It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right… How long had it taken them to get to be together, not just knowing they wanted to be but actually being? And now they were, and… and they were happy… They were so happy, to levels he hadn’t known yet were possible for someone to be, all for the sake of another, who made and received this happiness they created… It had never occurred to him that it might be taken from them this way.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at her standing there, looked at Maya Hart, and thinking of not seeing her face every day filled him with… with fear… more than that, it… it confirmed to him what he’d known deep down for longer than he knew to say… He loved her… He loved her as he’d ever loved a person in his life that didn’t share his blood. He loved Maya Hart… And knowing it now, he couldn’t see how it had taken him this long to understand it.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe to some degree he had known as soon as he’d seen her. She’d been standing there, outside the principal’s office with her mother, she’d turned her head and looked at him, and… that was it… Something in him had changed that day, and it wasn’t going to change back; he wouldn’t want it to if it could.</p><p> </p><p>That one small moment had set off a chain reaction, and the chain remained unbroken today, almost three years later, a chain that saw them go from strangers, to a couple of kids terrified at the prospect of being separated by cities and states. The chain was trembling with strain now, wasn’t it? What would happen if they… if she…</p><p> </p><p>His stomach was in knots, and his heart… oh, he couldn’t even say how <em>that</em> felt. He had sworn he would go with her to dinner with her parents, and he would keep his word, but… There she was, fixing her face so she could try and look normal, but him… Could he even do that? Could he sit facing that man and woman and not just flat out beg them, plead for them not to do this? Even less than that, could he sit there and <em>not</em> look like his world was falling apart?</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t sit still anymore. He got up, told her he’d be right back before moving off into his room. When he got there, for a moment, he stood still, unsure what to do with himself. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t fair. He loved this girl, this wonderful girl who had swept into his world and turned it not upside down but right side up. She had been integral to his becoming the person he was today, he truly believed it, and that person was possibly the best version of himself he could ever hope to be. All that had come to be because he had fallen for Maya Hart the moment their eyes had crossed.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at that drawing on his wall, not exactly that moment but near enough to it that it might as well have been. She’d given that to him, of all the moments she could have captured and given to him, it had been this one. Maybe some part of her had known something, too.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to imagine his life now if she left, went back to New York to stay. More than that, his mind veered to a world where she had never come at all and she’d always been out there and he’d always been out here. Never mind that he wouldn’t have half the friends he had now, never mind how different the rest of their lives would have been. <em>His</em> life, <em>his</em> life… Without her, he didn’t see how he would have risen out of the path he’d been travelling, the one that had led to his suspension. He might have continued down that road without her, and then who knew the kind of person he would have become then.</p><p> </p><p>But she <em>had</em> been in his life, still was, and he wasn’t about to let her out of it because of this. He had friends in New York… he had a friend he called brother in New York… What was the point of knowing he loved her if Maya’s returning to New York was in any way capable of changing the way he felt about her? It couldn’t, it wouldn’t. He would love her here in his arms, or halfway around the world… He had waited for her almost a year, and he could do this, too…</p><p> </p><p>That sudden rise in optimism had lasted a moment, but then there had come the fear again. Maybe he couldn’t sustain this, really. Not the way he felt for her but the person he had become. What if without her he fell back to the boy he had once been? Would Maya feel about that other version of him the way she felt about this one? What if he lost her for it?</p><p> </p><p>He sat on his bed, his shoulders sagging. What did he have to complain about? He knew how hard this time had been for her, this time and the time before. Maybe New York was just the place where she was meant to be. It had called to her for so long after she’d come here, and now…</p><p> </p><p>New York… That had been the place where things had changed for them, the place where they’d kissed for the first time… He could still see her face…</p><p> </p><p>How could he do this? He couldn’t… Life without her? How? <em>How</em>? Not going to pick her up in the morning, not seeing her next to him in class, not cheering her on when the girls’ team played, not holding her hand, not kissing her, not hearing that laugh of hers, not… so many things. Just when they had found their way to each other, they were about to be separated.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t fair…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0326"><h2>326. Their Fight For Loss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Right up until he’d come and held her, back in the shed, it had felt like she had no bearing on the ground. She’d lost her purchase on the ground, her feet unable to stand steady. Not again, they seemed to say, not again. Once already she had been ripped from all she knew, and she remembered how hard it had been to adjust. If she went back now, it wouldn’t be like she’d never left, she knew. She <em>had</em> left, she’d <em>been</em> gone, for almost three years. The one time she’d been back there, it had felt changed, just… not hers, not anymore. The Maya Hart who went back now would be the one who called Austin home, who would have been taken from it. And maybe she would reconnect with it in time, but at what price?</p><p> </p><p>She’d be leaving behind… all of these people who had made those last years, against all odds, the best of her life. Zay, Nadine, Asher, Dylan, Joey, Rebecca, new friends, dear friends, gone. Riley… Riley… She’d lost her once before, and now that she had her back she was supposed to lose her again? And Lucas… Just thinking it…</p><p> </p><p>Lucas Friar, in the void of the unknown that had been Austin, Texas when she’d first come here… He’d been like the core of her new world, calling up pieces gravitating around to solidify and make a new whole. And her shining new world was thriving now, bright and alive. She could no sooner remove him from it… the whole thing would come apart in pieces again, never to be reassembled. Not without him… not again… Someone might call it exaggerating, over-dramatic, but it wasn’t. It was the plain truth.</p><p> </p><p>He was sitting behind her now, she could see him in the mirror as she tried to make herself look like she hadn’t been crying. She almost had to make herself look away from him. Looking at him, she would only feel like she would break again, thinking that he would be gone from her day to day life.</p><p> </p><p>When he excused himself, she watched him go for a moment. Maybe it would be easier this way, yeah? No… Never…</p><p> </p><p>She imagined herself back out there in New York, as he sat here, in his house, so far away. She wouldn’t even know how to be that girl again, didn’t want to be, but could she even be the one she’d become here? She’d just have to start all over again, but without her core, could she really do it again?</p><p> </p><p>They’d come here, and she’d asked herself that question. Could she really find a home here? And then she’d gone to school that first day, and there he was… Lucas Friar, the boy she would find herself now pulled away from, even as she had grown to make sense of her heart and translate it into one simple truth… She’d fallen in love with the boy who’d given her a world again. It could only ever hurt so much for being made to part with half of her heart.</p><p> </p><p>There was no use, she thought, looking at her reflection in the mirror. No matter what she did, there was no pretending she hadn’t been crying. She’d have to find something to tell her parents, to explain it away. But then if they told her about the move, they’d figure out she knew. No, they couldn’t possibly tell her today, not after the test, not when they were meant to be unwinding, no… So, they would just keep it a secret from her… She’d never be able to hold on…</p><p> </p><p>She took a breath. Lucas would be there, and they’d find a way… Didn’t they always?</p><p> </p><p>No, she couldn’t start crying, not again. Oh, but she could feel the tears coming again, thinking about saying goodbye to him. She had done the long-distance thing with her friends already, she knew how it went. She may not have lost them, no, but it had changed things between them, and they’d never been the same. Even with her here for almost two years already, she and Riley had never been the same, never been as close as they’d been before. It was a difficult truth, but it was hers. They would always be best friends, but they’d never be those two girls in New York again.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas and her, they may have been something else, something all their own, but she thought about that distance and what it would do to them, and she felt like cracks would sneak up on them faster than they knew they could. It was a terrible thought, and she hated how quick her mind went to that place of chaos and doom, but it did not surprise her. Where else would she go when she didn’t know how else to safeguard what would be left of her heart?</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t go there, no. That was where she’d been, who she’d been, but that was in the past. Look at what she’d done today. She wouldn’t have the results for a week, but she looked at herself now and she felt certain she had passed that test. She was the Maya who had grown in this place, the Maya who loved that sweet cowboy Huckleberry in the other room, the Maya who’d become the person she had always been able to become, could but never did, not until she’d come here. The Maya who faced the world.</p><p> </p><p>She left the bathroom, taking no time at all to find him. Lucas was in his room, sitting on his bed, looking about exactly like what she felt on the inside. He looked up and found her gaze, held it with a question… What now? As though she knew any more. She came and sat on the ground at the foot of his bed, and a moment later he climbed down to sit with her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0327"><h2>327. Their Fight For Chance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When he came and sat with her, there was no question what she would do, and even as she moved to lean to him, his arms were ready to take hold of her. Right in that moment, it only felt like the thing to do, because what else could you do when on the verge of being taken from the one you loved except to cling on to them for as long as you still could?</p><p> </p><p>“My face still looks messed up,” she declared, her voice flat.</p><p> </p><p>“Just say you heard Dash was missing,” he replied, and she looked up at him, confused. “Oh, Shawn and your mom, they saw the open window and they thought Dash ran away,” he went on to explain.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… Right… They called you?” Lucas nodded. “We’ll have to call them back soon, before my mother starts knocking at every door in the city looking for that dog…” It should have made them smile, chuckle, but there was nothing; they weren’t ready to make any calls, not if they expected to behave like all was well.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had never seen him so sad, which might have been some compliment, showing how much the thought of her leaving affected him, but… how could his being sad be a good thing ever? She didn’t want him being sad, him or her either, but what could she do to make it better? There was nothing, was there? No matter what, she knew where this would all end up, with her driving away, flying away… and then who knew when she might see him again?</p><p> </p><p>“There’s really nothing we can do?” he asked. Her head was resting against his shoulder again, her arms locked around him. At his question, she seemed to curve in closer, as though it would guard her from the reminder of what was about to come to pass. Now her ear was at his heart.</p><p> </p><p>“I want to think there is, but I can’t see how. No matter what I do, I lose… I can’t… I don’t want to lose more, because it already hurts like hell now…”</p><p> </p><p>He said nothing for a while after that, only held her. If he cried again, would anyone care, because right now it felt like he couldn’t stop it from happening. They were getting nowhere closer to having the means of showing their faces to her parents or anyone else at all.</p><p> </p><p>Before long, this wouldn’t just be something they knew about, would it? Soon it would be a thing that was real, they’d know when she would be leaving, there would be packing, the little house emptying out. Their friends would find out, and just like that, a wave of sadness would sweep across their little group. The year would come to an end feeling very much like that, like an ending, and then it would be. They had to let her finish the school year, right? It was March, they were almost through, and then… summer… He didn’t even want to think about that. Summer, freedom for them to do so much more, and then all the things that made summer special for them. Their annual camping trip… He’d promised her they’d get to do it, every year. And the Babineaux family party, she’d been to that every year, was meant to be again. Playing basketball, movie nights, working at the diner. One by one, it felt as though it was all disappearing.</p><p> </p><p>They had to do something, didn’t they? They couldn’t just let it end like this, they had to find some way to turn it around. For one thing, they had to get a hold of themselves so they could go back out there. It felt all so impossible now, but it would have to change sooner or later. He’d always found a way to cheer her up before, hadn’t he? Except those were different; those times, she’d been the only one of the two of them needing cheering up. This time, he was right down there, same as she was, and he needed just as much help as she did. How could he tell her all would be well when even he couldn’t see it?</p><p> </p><p>It took until Dash came into the room to find them for him to realize Maya had fallen asleep. He brushed the hair from her face and saw her eyes were closed, her breathing even. Well there… he’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d helped her relax… sort of. He’d held her, and she’d felt safe, and so she’d dozed off, letting everything else leave her. He didn’t plan on waking her just yet. Still, he had to do something.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching in his pocket, he found his phone and texted Shawn, telling him that he and Maya had found Dash, they were back at his house, and they would be back on time to go for dinner. He didn’t mention how she had invited him, but he didn’t feel he had to. The message was sent, the phone silenced, and then he just sat there and went on holding his sleeping girlfriend.</p><p> </p><p>Not a minute later, he was asleep, too, as though the exhaustion that had claimed Maya had found him, too. He drifted away from the waking world where all was falling apart, and he went into a dream world where the girl he loved sat with him, not unlike the way they sat now, around a campfire, with their friends, all of them. Whether or not this dream would become reality in a few months’ time, it didn’t matter here. Here it was plenty real. Here when they wished for a moment to go on, it did, unaffected by the laws of time and logic. In his dreams, in <em>her</em> dreams, they were forever where they felt safe, and happy, and exactly where they should be. In their dreams, there was no saying goodbye.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0328"><h2>328. Their Fight For All</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d woken up, slowly, hearing a voice from another room, no… below, downstairs, but calling up. It was a moment before she recognized it as Mrs. Friar, and when she did she opened her eyes to find she was in Lucas’ room, leaning to him, as he slept. Gently, she tapped at his arm until he woke up, opened his eyes. He looked just as surprised to find her there, but then, same as she did, he got to remembering what had brought them here, and what had put them in such a state. The initial shock had worn off, run its course, but the overall cause remained. She would be leaving Austin…</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother’s home,” Maya whispered. He nodded and they stood from the ground, stretching, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and straightening up before looking at the time. “We have to go, the dinner…” she declared, though her voice suggested she had little to no appetite at this point.</p><p> </p><p>Managing a fairly quick exit, all things considered, they had started back for the Hart house. He held her hand as they walked, and she held on just as much. They had to get to a place where they didn’t look so torn up, which seemed impossible in many ways now, but… At least sleep had managed to erase some of the evidence of her crying she hadn’t been able to remove earlier, so that would be of some comfort, wouldn’t it? But it wasn’t enough, there had to be more… They had to have so much more…</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just distance,” he said, and she looked at him, a frown on her face like she wondered if he might have had a knock on the head. “I’m always going to feel the same way about you, whether you’re right next to me or back in New York. Do you trust me?”</p><p> </p><p>“More than you know,” she answered, and seeing even the smallest indication of what could grow into a smile on her face, after what she’d had before, was just everything he could ask for right now. It was a start.</p><p> </p><p>“Then am I telling you the truth now, that it’s all going to work out?” She said nothing, but her face said it: she wanted to, but it was hard. “We worked so hard to get to where we are now. And we’re not going to give up, are we? <em>I’m</em> not.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I’m</em> not,” she repeated, the budding smile now blooming so unstoppable that it caught her by surprise, and it reflected on to his face, too. She breathed out; she was still scared, still sad, and he didn’t see her stopping anytime soon, but she didn’t carry it so close to the surface anymore. “Not going to let time go by so long without either one of us visiting, not like with me and New York when I came here… We’ll find a way.”</p><p> </p><p>“We will,” he agreed. There she was. She was pulling herself together again, piece by piece. Maya Hart wasn’t going to be defeated by this.</p><p> </p><p>“But…” she started again, pausing with a sigh, “I still just… I hate this so much.” There was a small tremble in her voice like tears rising, but she pushed it down. “It’s not just you and me, my friends… There’s the team, and <em>all</em> the work I did for that test, for classes with Nadine that now… It’s our house, our little house, a-and the whole area… All those places, they’re part of me now, and they get to make decisions that mean I have to lose all that?”</p><p> </p><p>What could he even say about that? He agreed, of course, but then would he be serving her by riling her up more?</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t… go down that route now,” she sighed, “I… I’m not supposed to know about it,” she frowned as they reached the bus stop, sat on the bench.</p><p> </p><p>Anything he seemed to come up with as solutions all had the semblance of schemes to keep her from having to leave Austin, but no matter how he shaped it, he knew it wouldn’t work. He had to face the facts, they both did, and they’d done that before, yeah? They would make it work. It was just distance.</p><p> </p><p>The bus ride had turned into their coming up with a story of how they had teamed up to find the missing Dash and bring her back to the Friar house. They didn’t want to be caught in a lie, couldn’t go too far out of reality. He understood why it was necessary to her, that she didn’t want to mess things up with her parents by having them know she’d overheard them and chosen to run off and hide out.</p><p> </p><p>Off the bus again, and they went along, leaving him to realize he’d yet to really ask her how the test had gone. When he did, she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I did okay,” she said, then off his look, she went on. “Okay, pretty sure I passed, but I mean I won’t know…” She was cut off as he picked her up and gave her a twirl. It might have been a pre-emptive response, but it was good news material in his book, and right now they needed all of it that they could get. And it got her laughing, proper laughter, the kind that could make his own heart leap, so it was all he needed to know.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah you did,” he told her, setting her down again. “I knew you would, didn’t I?” She gave a nod of concession.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Huckleberry, show some humility,” she gave a contented sigh. They went on walking toward her house. Somehow, somehow, they’d be alright.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0329"><h2>329. Their Fight For Understanding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That the evening went by as smoothly as it did, in hindsight, felt like a miracle, with how uncertain Maya felt as she and Lucas went through the door. But then her mother and Shawn, still believing that Dash had escaped from her room only to be found by them a while later, had welcomed them with every bit of apology they could muster. It had only gotten stronger as they took in Maya’s face, saw how it still had trace evidence of tears, for the previously lost dog, as she led them to believe. She could not have mustered the strength to confront them with the truth. Much as the sleep had helped her, the whole day, the test, and the revelation of Shawn’s job in New York, had left her just too spent to say a thing, wishing that they wouldn’t bring it up themselves.</p><p> </p><p>And they hadn’t, not at all. Thankful as she’d been throughout the evening, as much as she’d wanted it that way, when it was all over, though she couldn’t see them springing this on her today of all days, there was some part of her who couldn’t help but think they should still have said <em>something</em>, rather than to hold a secret from her.</p><p> </p><p>They had gone out to Chubbie’s for dinner. Maya would almost have preferred any other place but this one. So many memories had been made in this place, and to be there, on that night, felt like an outburst waiting to happen. She could write this off to her parents as her being tired from the test when they’d ask if she was alright. Lucas knew better; most of those memories had been made with him. Whenever she’d feel the smallest trigger of emotion clench, his hand would go and find hers under the table as they sat side by side. At one point, he had not let go for a solid five or six minutes.</p><p> </p><p>When questioned on how the test had gone, Maya had dug deep under the shock of her discovery to find memories of the test. She had not boasted of her presumed success with them, only saying she hoped she’d done enough. She didn’t know that she could have mustered much more at the moment.</p><p> </p><p>Later topics discussed over dinner had involved basketball, as it often did, and wedding plans, as was also common these days. Despite herself, Maya had zoned out at one point. She was happy for them, of course, always would be, but at the moment she found it too hard to share in their joy when hers had been struck so deep.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Baby Girl,” her mother reached out across the table to touch her face with a sympathetic smile. “You’re just exhausted, aren’t you? You want to go home?”</p><p> </p><p>“I…” Maya hesitated, but then if she was being honest with herself, it was what she wanted. Her head was just not in a place of celebration, and she <em>did</em> want to leave Chubbie’s. Her mother had handed her the way out; how could she refuse it? “Actually, that’s a good idea… yeah… Sorry…”</p><p> </p><p>“No need to apologize,” Shawn told her as they stood from the table, giving her a smile she wished she could return. To hide her instability, she quickly turned to Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>“You can come and hang out a while, yeah?” she asked, as though there was any doubt he would say yes.</p><p> </p><p>Back in the car they’d got, back to the Hart house. Suddenly, the drive, which had grown so commonplace over the time, now felt like it had all of her attention and unwaveringly so. She watched the familiar streets go by, the buildings… In a matter of weeks, they would become part of her past… She’d start to forget, wouldn’t she? Oh, if she was returned here in time she would possibly find her way by reflex, but the rest would just start and grow blurred in her thoughts, she knew it would, and that thought alone had her on the verge of tears all over again. She thanked the cover of darkness.</p><p> </p><p>At the house, Maya took Lucas and they remained to sit on the front steps. After her parents had gone back inside and shut the door, she was sure she visibly breathed out, and so did Lucas. They had carried the weight of the secret, and now at last came time to set it down, shake out their arms…</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” she spoke softly. When he looked at her, she shrugged, “For tonight. I couldn’t have made it through without you there. I’m kind of not sure about what will happen after you leave tonight…” she admitted. What if she blurted it all out? She knew… She knew it all…</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be okay,” he told her. She didn’t look too sure on that. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch, unclipped the chain. Pulling at her hand until he had her palm open before him, he placed the watch there for her to hold.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” she asked, as though all she could think about was the fact that she’d gotten it for him, Christmas before last, that he had worn it most every day since, not managing to stop and think why he might be giving it over.</p><p> </p><p>“I want you to hold on to it, as long as you need to. When I’m not there with you, you’ll have the watch, and it won’t be the same, but…” If he thought his words would spare her from a new wave of tears, he quickly saw it was not the case as she moved to put her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder, her body wracked with new sobs. He held her in silence, his fierce hugs never failing in their power to calm her, no matter how long it took. She couldn’t say what her mother or Shawn would have thought if they’d spied this scene.</p><p> </p><p>“What am I going to blame it on this time?” she frowned to herself once she could pull herself together again, sitting up to wipe her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Allergies?” he had nothing else to offer, still it shook a laugh free that might have been the most healing she could have asked for in that moment, and maybe him, too. He found it hard enough to ever see her cry, and when he himself could feel the need to share in her sorrows, her tears would feel as though they called to his own. He wanted those seen even less. But her laugh put a stopper to any escape from his own eyes, and soon he laughed, too, just a bit.</p><p> </p><p>Very little was said between them until his father came to pick him up. Shawn would have gladly driven him, but Lucas and Maya had both had the same thought. Lucas, left in a car with Shawn for a few minutes, would have almost certainly spilled some beans, and he was better off going with <em>his</em> father.</p><p> </p><p>Going back into her room, Maya had taken a seat at the bay window, carefully pulling the watch from her pocket, where she’d pushed it before Lucas had left with his father. She held it in her palm, teased at the chain with the fingers of her other hand, pressed her hand shut over the watch, revealed it again…</p><p> </p><p>It was hard not to put him up as the face of all she’d lose in this move. Everything she’d felt through him, with him… the thought of losing it…</p><p> </p><p>She pushed the small button at the top of the watch, to make it open. On the inside of the cover, Lucas had cut out a picture of the two of them, funny faces cranked up to a hundred, and stuck it there. She’d always seen his smirk when he’d look at his watch, but somehow, she’d never seen the picture and just thought he was happy to have the watch. Now she saw the real reason, and like him it made her smirk, and she shut the watch, coiling the chain around her hand, uncoiling, coiling again… He was right. She had his watch, she felt his presence, she wasn’t alone.</p><p> </p><p>Lying in bed soon, the watch was just there on her nightstand where she could see it, where it could tell her… Sleep now, it’s alright… <em>We’re</em> alright and we will be… somehow.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0330"><h2>330. Her Hope For Levity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Maya awoke on that April morning where Katy Hart and Shawn Hunter were to be wed, and as every morning these past few weeks, the first thing she did was to reach out for the watch on her nightstand. She would slip it into her PJ’s pant pocket after holding it in the palm of her hand for a few seconds. All this time… all this time, and as far as her parents would know, she still had no idea about the move… <em>They</em> hadn’t told her a thing at all.</p><p> </p><p>She tried so hard, every day. She tried not to let it get to her, but how could she keep this up? It was too much, to keep on acting like the world she lived in was not soon to be taken from her? She was already digging so deep as it was. If not for Lucas, in presence or by proxy of his watch, she knew she would have lost control long ago. She was just as aware that this thing was killing him deep down, too, but then he was who he was, and looking after her seemed more important to him than how <em>he</em> could have felt.</p><p> </p><p>The month had been carried along day by day. The wedding plans had by their nature managed to keep things hectic, to keep her thinking too much about… that… The dresses – her mom’s and her own – and the accessories, the venue, the officiant, the food, the flowers and other decorations, the honeymoon… They would be leaving her with the Matthews while they were gone, so she guessed the move wouldn’t be announced until after their return…</p><p> </p><p>Maya was just as excited for them as ever, she was. Yet… She couldn’t help but think about what she’d overheard. She was sure that, in their heads, it made sense for them to hold on to this for the time being, but honestly… Maya just didn’t see what it could possibly be.</p><p> </p><p>As to the other big anticipated thing in her life… the test, or, more to the point, the test results. To this day, she couldn’t decide how to qualify the fact that she had both passed and exceeded her own expectations. It wasn’t as though she’d be here to take those classes, and without that…</p><p> </p><p>Of course, her friends weren’t aware of this. The day the results had gone up, Nadine had seen them before her, leading to her nearly tackling an unsuspecting Maya at her locker before dragging her back so she could see for herself. She’d been stunned, ecstatic for a time even, as she and Nadine celebrated with the others. But then… but then… she remembered she wouldn’t <em>be</em> in those classes, not here, not with her friend. Lucas had seen the change come over her face, she knew; he’d gone on immediately into cover up mode, and the others hadn’t noticed a thing.</p><p> </p><p>Later, when they’d been on their own, he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t needed to. He’d held her a moment, passing strength on to her. When she’d pulled back, she’d shown him the watch from her pocket. It was all she had to do, to say ‘you’re with me, thank you.’</p><p> </p><p>This morning, she could have walked around with that watch in her hand, the chain wrapped over it, for as long as it was just the three of them. But then it didn’t end up being just them for very long. She’d barely gone and sat at the kitchen table, greeted by her mother who was just a walking bundle of giddy nerves at this point, when the doorbell had rung. Maya had gotten right back up and gone to answer.</p><p> </p><p>There were three men at the door. Two she knew very well, and one she recognized off pictures alone until a few days ago. Mr. Matthews, his brother Eric, and Shawn’s brother, Jack. They’d come to take the groom off to get ready. ‘Take’ was a light way of putting it; ‘carried off like a captive’ felt more appropriate for how they had departed with her soon-to-be father, complaining he had no shoes.</p><p> </p><p>Now it was just her mother and her. Maya touched the watch in her pocket. How many times had she been there with her mother, sitting quietly with her but all the while shouting in her head, begging, pleading? <em>Please don’t make me go, please don’t take me from my home, not again…</em></p><p> </p><p>But she’d never done it… never could muster up the courage to do it, knowing what it would cost her in the end. Only now, on that morning of all mornings, she had felt the urge never stronger. The more days went by, the more she would stand there and think that surely the moment was nearing when they would tell her about the move, and when they did, it would all become sort of official, wouldn’t it? There’d be a date for their departure, and before she’d know it, they’d be gone.</p><p> </p><p>Except she looked at her mother, saw how happy she was, and… the urge would recede. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Maya would go on and hold her tongue… again.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, is everything okay?” her mother asked. Maya looked at her, nodded. “Are you sure?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure,” Maya lied.</p><p> </p><p>Before her mother could say more, the bell rang again. This time, Katy’s ‘bride brigade’ had come along. Topanga, Riley, Hildy, Melinda Friar… The aborted conversation was soon forgotten. Today was about Katy, about Shawn. It wasn’t about her, or secrets, or broken hearts. Maya put on her smile, reached for the watch, and she kept on going.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0331"><h2>331. Her Hope For Security</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had made a deal with herself as she’d gotten dressed, looking into the mirror and seeing there in her eyes the unmistakable shade of sadness. Much as she could try to pretend it wasn’t there, she couldn’t <em>not</em> see it, and she hated that it was there, today of all days. She’d wanted this day to come for so long, longer than she would ever have admitted to herself, and now it was here, and…</p><p> </p><p>So the deal became that she would be strong, that she would set aside all those feelings she had about the secret, the move, and she would just be happy for them, for two who had deserved this moment for so long, two she loved so very much. Nothing else would matter but that they had a wonderful wedding day.</p><p> </p><p>And, for a while, it worked. How could it not? The last few days had seen a number of people descend on Austin, family and friends of his and hers. Riley’s grandparents were here, as were Shawn’s old teachers, Mr. Feeny and Mr. Turner. Feeny of course she’d met when they’d gone to New York. Turner however had been something of a legend, not unlike Shawn had been to her until the day he’d shown up on her doorstep. She knew about him from stories she’d heard through Shawn, and through Riley’s parents. She knew the role he had played in her soon-to-be father’s life, and since Riley had joked that this made him something like her grandfather, she’d been inevitably curious to see this man for real.</p><p> </p><p>He’d arrived just two days ago, somehow not unlike the way Shawn had done. She’d been alone, there’d been the doorbell, and when she’d opened the door, there he was. He’d presented himself, and she didn’t know that she’d follow Riley’s line of thought, but he did sort of feel immediately like family, like she knew why Shawn would speak of him so highly. It was so meaningful of an encounter to her that, knowing the work he did, back in New York, she thought for a beat that she’d be glad of it when they were back there… not that she put the thought to words.</p><p> </p><p>The other meeting she’d been most anxious to have had been Jack Hunter… She’d have an uncle now… She knew his story, too, how he and Shawn hadn’t grown up together, how they’d been brought together. She’d almost met him a couple of times before but it had never worked out that he’d be able to make the trip when Shawn visited, and when they’d been in New York he’d been out of the country. But then he’d arrived, a week ago. He’d been so nervous for some reason at the thought of meeting her, of knowing how to interact with her. She had been so focused on making a good impression, too, so she had been a bit brighter than she might have been otherwise. So all in all, it had gone great, and when she’d asked if she could call him Uncle Jack, he’d looked like she’d bowled him over, but then he’d smiled and said he hoped she would.</p><p> </p><p>They were all here in town, and so were Farkle and Smackle and their families, which had been a most fortunate surprise to her, though at the same time it made temptation rise for her to tell the pair of them, her friends from New York, that she would soon rejoin them. She’d almost done it a handful of times since they’d arrived two days ago, but she hadn’t yet, and if she could keep herself together, she would continue to hold her tongue.</p><p> </p><p>She was dressed, and her hair had been done up, of all people, by Mrs. Friar. She’d had the smallest concern that she would come out of this looking a mess, but it was anything but that. Mrs. Friar had done a wonderful job, which Maya had only noticed once she’d finished. The whole time she was working on her hair, Maya had this stunning sort of little thought that she’d even miss <em>her</em>. That might have sounded as though she hadn’t cared for her before, but there were people she had known and liked, and that wouldn’t mean she’d miss them. Melinda Friar could come off as too much to some people, she’d seen it. But to Maya she had always been nothing but welcoming, even more so since she and Lucas had started dating. When she’d finished with her hair, Maya had seen how well she’d done… and she’d turned and hugged Melinda. The woman had been surprised, but then she’d laughed, hugged her back, said she was welcome, not understanding the nature of the embrace.</p><p> </p><p>The deal she’d made with herself had held just fine… right up until they’d arrived at the park where they’d hold the ceremony. Lucas was there, having arrived with Shawn and the others.</p><p> </p><p>Maya saw him there in his suit, done up at his best, and her heart tripped over itself, clamping her airway shut for a moment. He’d seen her, too, in the carefully chosen bridesmaid dress, the hair done by his mother, and the pocket watch’s chain dangling out the side of her handbag, and she knew he was having much the same reaction. She wanted so much to go and see him, talk to him, but before she could, she was called back by Riley, while Farkle had pulled him elsewhere.</p><p> </p><p>Everything she’d pushed to the side like things she’d hide under her bed when she’d be told to clean her room and didn’t want to… they’d come spewing right back out, and they refused to be hidden again. She had to do something, she had to, or else she wouldn’t make it through the day. And she had to… she had to. Her parents were getting married, they deserved to be happy… But she was part of this family being formed today, and she deserved to be happy, too… Right now, she was anything but. Somehow, somehow, she had to find a way for all of them to get what they deserved.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0332"><h2>332. Her Hope For Clarity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She needed to talk to Riley. If there were some things she knew in this world, with no shortage of certainty, it was that her best friend could be counted on in times like these. Maya wouldn’t so much as need to explain to her why, Riley would cover for her if she asked her to, in the right way. She’d have to pay it back by explaining herself later, which would mean confiding this secret she’d been holding, but she saw no other way out.</p><p> </p><p>Riley agreed, as predicted, though she did have that concerned look in her eyes, asking what she was going to do. When Maya said she needed to talk to Shawn, Riley blinked, pointing past her. Turning around, Maya saw him walking toward them. He had a look on his face, too, one that said ‘we need to talk,’ and at once it felt like she was being melded to the ground. He wouldn’t, would he? Not here, now? How was she supposed to make it through the wedding now?</p><p> </p><p>“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked, as Riley excused herself and walked off, leaving Maya and her soon-to-be father alone. She tried not to look as nervous as she felt, but clearly that was not going to happen. “Are you doing okay? Look, I know today’s a big day, it’s… I mean I don’t think my heartrate’s let up since I woke up this morning,” he admitted, and she could see that, too, as much as she could see that this wasn’t the kind of heart hammering that went hand in hand with someone who didn’t want or know how to do something.</p><p> </p><p>It was the kind where you couldn’t wait to do it… He couldn’t wait to marry her mother… couldn’t wait to be her father… She could see it. And all she could do in that moment was hug him. For all she was feeling about the move, it did not change what he meant to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” he spoke, hugging her back. “Look, I wanted to make sure you were okay before we got going,” he explained. “It’s just I saw you out here and you looked like something was on your mind, I had to make sure… Maya?” he pulled back to look at her face. “You’re crying,” he reached in his pockets, looking for something to hand her, and she stepped back, wishing she hadn’t broken, but now she had, and he’d seen…</p><p> </p><p>“When were you going to tell me?” she finally just blurted out. How long were you guys going to wait?”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait for what?” Shawn asked, looking so baffled. “What’s going on?”</p><p> </p><p>“I heard you two talking, the day I had my advanced placement test, I know about the job, and New York,” she went on, working as best she could to keep her voice down.</p><p> </p><p>“The test, the… when Lucas’ dog ran off?”</p><p> </p><p>“Dash didn’t run off,” she sighed. “I came home early, I came in through the window, and then I heard and I just… I took Dash and I left again, I had her the whole time,” she confessed in a flurry of words, then, after a pause, “Why haven’t you said anything?”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya…” he looked at her, her slow tears all that she had left to give, and the realization that she’d been holding on to this for all this time seemed to knock him over. “If I’d known you’d heard, I… Maya, I would never keep something like this secret, not from you. The reason I never said anything is because there was nothing <em>to</em> say. I didn’t take the job.”</p><p> </p><p>The trembling in her throat stalled. She blinked. “What?” she hiccupped. “You didn’t?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. “Which you would have heard if you’d stayed there about ten seconds more.”</p><p> </p><p>She took a breath in that moment that felt so new, so complete, that she knew she’d not been breathing that way, not since the day she’d found out… no… the day she’d been led to believe she was going to leave her Austin life.</p><p> </p><p>“It was a very interesting offer, don’t get me wrong. But I wasn’t looking for that kind of advancement… I kind of have a much more compelling project in the works right now,” he motioned around them, and to her, giving her a smile. She laughed, hugged him again. “Maya, I would never do that to you guys, to you. Just remember that, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” she breathed, breathed and breathed some more.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve been keeping all that to yourself?” he asked, and she pulled back, startled, as she thought about the other person who needed to know the truth.</p><p> </p><p>“I, uh… I need to do something, I… I… When does the thing start?”</p><p> </p><p>“’The thing,’ you mean my wedding to your mom? Twenty minutes,” he informed her, looking at his watch just as she tore off at a run. “Maya!” he called after her.</p><p> </p><p>“Everything’s fine!” she shouted back. And it was… oh, everything was wonderful…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0333"><h2>333. Her Hope For Reality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Where had she seen him last, where was he, <em>where was he</em>? She had to find him, had to tell him… so many things… he needed to know. If she could just…</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas?” she finally resorted to shouting, looking around. “Hey, Huckleberry!” Some of the guests standing about turned, looking at her sort of puzzled. “Dylan, where’s…” she asked her friend when she spotted him. He pointed off to the nearby tent where the reception would be held later on. “Thanks,” she hurried on.</p><p> </p><p>Inside the tent, she found him – thankfully – on his own, crouching next to a bag she recognized as being his mother’s, sitting on the chair that was to be hers. He looked up.</p><p> </p><p>“Were you calling me before? I thought I heard…” he pointed out of the tent as she went to him and kissed him into silence. When she pulled back, he looked at her, half-startled, but then he saw the look on her face and he was at once intrigued. She didn’t think he had seen her so unburdened in weeks, before the day of the test even. “What…”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not moving back to New York,” she revealed plainly, seeing the instant smile in him awakening from a long sleep, long sickness, leaving him more alive than he had been in a long time. “Shawn didn’t take that job, everything’s good, we’re…”</p><p> </p><p>He was the one to silence her now, with a kiss that very much carried her relief as much as his own. They were not going to be separated, were never meant to be even though for a month they had thought they were. That month, that terrible month, it was behind them now, and with it came a whole host of realizations. She wouldn’t lose him, or her friends, her little house, her school, her city… her team… and next year, she would be in those classes she’d worked so hard to get into, with Nadine. And in less than an hour, her parents would be married, all these people around them, important people in their lives, and…</p><p> </p><p>When they stood there, holding to one another, breathing, breathing with ease at last, she looked up into his eyes, so close to her own, and the words came in a whisper, released with the ease in her lungs.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” he asked, her voice too low in the first utterance. But she spoke again, fiercely though just enough that he heard.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you…” she told him, feeling surely that she must have somehow earned this courage, though if he…</p><p> </p><p>“I love you…” he repeated though, his face aglow like he had been waiting as long as she had for the chance to say it. When she heard it, her renewed joy felt as though it had been cast in some unbreakable metal. He held her now, almost swaying in a dance with her as they let the moment exist undisturbed over them.</p><p> </p><p>“Here…” she spoke, her voice rough, broken by tears of joy she held within. She reached into her bag and placed the pocket watch in his hand. “This did what it was meant to do. Now it’s yours again; I gave it to you so it would be. If I need to know you’re with me, well… I just know.”</p><p> </p><p>The pocket watch was hooked in place and slipped into his pocket, where it belonged. When he looked back at her, he still had that look on his face, probably the same one she had, that was still floating in the knowledge that she wasn’t going away, and that she was staying, with them, with him… the reality that they loved each other and had declared as much.</p><p> </p><p>Now she explained to him her encounter with Shawn, her spilling the beans, and his turning right back around and explaining what was really happening, what she foolishly could have known all along.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait… when’s the wedding starting again?” he asked, and once again that day she startled, remembering something that had escaped her mind. The watch was extracted again, and they saw together.</p><p> </p><p>“Five minutes, oh…” she pulled him out of the tent, though he then went back in, to get the thing from his mother’s bag he’d been sent for. “Right, so you get back to where you have to be, I need to get to my mother, and… yeah…” she laughed. She was never going to sit still now.</p><p> </p><p>So off they went, Lucas to his parents and their seats, Maya to her mother and the rest of the bridal party. If her delay was in any way cause for concern or frustration, the look of absolute joy on her made quick work of removing any sort of questions that might have been asked of her.</p><p> </p><p>It was such a beautiful April morning… How had she not noticed it before? The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight. There was a nice breeze, they were not too hot or cold… And her mother was looking like… well, like her waiting groom, anxious to join him and take this step in her new life.</p><p> </p><p>“You look beautiful, Mom,” Maya had embraced her mother, who did the same with her. “Ready?”</p><p> </p><p>“Never been more ready,” Katy vowed.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0334"><h2>334. Her Hope for Serenity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she was little, when it was just the two of them, Maya would dream of a day where she might have a normal, happy family… like Riley did. It had taken her a long time to understand that what they had, the two of them, could be just as normal, just as happy, that it could be all they ever needed. Then Shawn had come along, just as she’d understood this, and he had come to increase this joy for two into something more. Today, right now, they were making it official.</p><p> </p><p>Everything had been planned, rehearsed, and this wedding was going to run as smoothly as one ever could. Even in those weeks where she’d believed they would be leaving Austin, working to line everything up for today had been important to her, very much so. It might have been the one thing outside of the usual fare that kept her going. She wondered how it would have shaped up if she hadn’t been feeling the way she’d been feeling.</p><p> </p><p>Seeing the people gathered in that tent for her mother and Shawn, as she moved up the aisle, she had to resist the urge to look over her shoulder, to see the look on her mother’s face. She must have been so happy, Maya hoped so. She wanted this day to be the kind that they would remember fondly, to look back on through the years as one of the greatest.</p><p> </p><p>If she couldn’t see her mother, she could definitely see Shawn… and <em>he</em> could see her mother, she knew he could; he only had eyes for his bride. Just this morning there had been the slightest amount of nervousness at the thought of getting married, but she wasn’t seeing that here now. He was looking at her mother, and she couldn’t read what was going on in his mind, but she honestly didn’t need to. She couldn’t wait to tease him about how goofy his face looked…</p><p> </p><p>When at last she reached her spot at the front of the tent and she turned on her heel, she got to see what she had wanted to see before, got to see her mother coming up that aisle, and it was probably a good thing she had Riley at her side, discreetly grasping her hand to see her through the emotions, the tears coming to her now being made by joy’s work. How could her eyes have stayed dry, seeing Katy Hart, coming up in her wedding dress, just as blind to any and all but her husband-to-be as he was.</p><p> </p><p>Almost two and a half years they had known each other… Maya remembered that first day they’d met, at Christmas, how their first little while knowing one another they had quickly got to arguing over Shawn’s offer to pay to help Maya visit her friends back in New York. It would in no way have sold her on the possibility they might ever end up in this position. But between that day and this day, before her eyes, she had seen the two of them become a pair, bonded tightly, and today felt like confirmation of an established fact.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had come to join her groom at the front of the tent, to stand before the one and only Mr. Feeny, who was to carry out the ceremony for them. Maya just watched them, stood side by side, the air about them being something she wished so much she knew how to put into words. It was like… they both knew something, standing there, that no one but them ever could know. It made them strong, almost made them hover off the ground. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together, and they couldn’t wait to start.</p><p> </p><p>The vows were soon spoken, and Maya knew she heard them, but even as she heard them they flew away from her. What they left in their place was an image, growing fuller and more colorful at every new word. The image they created with their words felt like a great wide mural, showing lives, coming together. The past, broken days, striving but struggling. The present, risen higher, out of what had been and into what could be. And they saw a future, unapologetically unafraid and vibrant… If she could ever do it justice she might have attempted to put it to paper, to canvas.</p><p> </p><p>Rings were exchanged, and Maya could see her mother loved her own when she saw it there on her finger. Maya had been part of the choice when it was purchased, as she had been in so many others. She knew both of them had wanted to involve her as much as possible in every step; this day wasn’t just about the two of them, it was the three of them, as a family.</p><p> </p><p>Before long, it was done. Her mother… her father… husband and wife. Before they could walk back up the aisle, they had turned back toward her, and they had motioned for her to join them. Rather than to go walking hand in hand, Katy and Shawn had gone with one arm each around their daughter.</p><p> </p><p>Her father… Shawn was her father now… Stepfather, technically, sure, but she didn’t see herself calling him that. She had been slow enough to adjust to even go from ‘Shawn’ to ‘my father,’ hadn’t wanted to take that jump too soon, for some reason. But she was here now, and that feeling had been completely changed. Now it was all just official to her, which she guessed was kind of silly, but that had been the way she’d seen it. She hadn’t caught herself calling him Dad yet, but it had to come, sooner or later…</p><p> </p><p>Now the wedding was done, but the day was not done. All these people had come to celebrate Katy and Shawn, and celebrate them they would.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0335"><h2>335. Her Hope For Eternity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they’d waited for the reception to start, Maya had pulled Riley aside and told her about the time she had believed she was going back to New York. She had thought she might choose not to tell her. Why would she need to, right? She wasn’t actually going, and Riley hadn’t known a thing, so why did she have to change that? Better not to put it into her mind, no? But then she thought about her, standing next to her during the ceremony, holding her hand… Riley had been one of the most important people in her life since they were kids. She knew why she hadn’t told her about it all before, but now that it was over, now that she didn’t have to worry anymore, she needed this, to confide in her.</p><p> </p><p>Even having been cautious in wording it so Riley knew she wasn’t actually leaving, she could see a momentary twinge in the other girl’s face at hearing that they’d almost gone away, back to their old city. The question had come up, of course, Riley had asked why she hadn’t told her before. Maya had explained it well enough, how she hadn’t believed she was meant to know, had resolved not to say a word until it was out and she had no choice.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I couldn’t have done that, if I was… oh…” Riley realized, letting out a breath. Maya gave her a smile. “Well you’re not leaving now,” Riley embraced her, giving a quick squeeze of a hug. “And now we get to be roomies for a couple of weeks!”</p><p> </p><p>It had been easy to know where she’d be staying while her parents were off on their honeymoon, so much so that Maya doubted there had ever been any asking or agreeing required. She was going to stay with the Matthews and that was that.</p><p> </p><p>“I actually heard my dad say how now him and Uncle Shawn would get to raise their girls together.” Upon hearing this, Maya had to giggle, but also it felt sort of sweet to think how Mr. Matthews saw this as their reality now.</p><p> </p><p>“He gets we already <em>were</em> raised together? I mean, technically…” she pointed out, hooking her arm with Riley’s, loving to see the smile on her best friend’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s really best not to correct him at this point,” Riley countered, and Maya nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, probably,” she agreed, then smiled back at her.</p><p> </p><p>Her parents weren’t flying off until the next afternoon, but still Maya’s bags had already been packed and were ready to go to Riley’s, as she would be, when the day was done, so she would be seeing her parents off that night. To think she could have been seeing them off still carrying this misguided belief that they were moving back to New York.</p><p> </p><p>She already couldn’t wait for them to return. She wanted the two of them to be back, so the three of them could get started on… just everything. Her parents would return, the tail end of their honeymoon being a trip back to Philadelphia, to pack up the last of Shawn’s apartment, bringing the lot cross-country so that his belongings could be moved into the little house. They had already worked, the three of them, to turn Katy and Maya’s house into Katy and Maya and Shawn’s house.</p><p> </p><p>Once he was all moved in, and they were there, all three of them, living in that house, it would be just as she’d wanted everything to be. All this time, even though it really hadn’t been all that long since Shawn had even made his proposal, she had been waiting for this, for them to have just normal, day-to-day living in their home, as a family.</p><p> </p><p>And when she’d been sure they were leaving Austin, leaving that house, then they’d been leaving that dream, too. There among all the other things she’d stood to lose in this move, that one had hurt, and she tried not to let it, but it did. Maybe she was going to be just fine making that home anywhere as long as it was the three of them, but it hadn’t felt that way.</p><p> </p><p>Now she had it all back, her Austin life, with her family, her friends, and Lucas… Her life had not felt so perfect in… well, ever. And she still didn’t feel like it was cause for concern anymore. She didn’t assume that it could only mean that things would soon fall apart.</p><p> </p><p>Soon they had gone to rejoin the rest of their group, all of them having been invited to the wedding of course. Off Riley’s advice, given in a look, Maya had shared hers and Lucas’ secret of the last month with the rest of them. Their response had been a lot like Riley’s, shock, and a question, but generally great understanding in the end, too. She expected no less from her friends. Deep down she had never regretted her secret so much, not with them. She knew they would get it.</p><p> </p><p>The reception would soon begin, so Maya and her friends went about corralling the guests into the tent, directing them to their tables as they had been set. When everyone had been brought to where they had to be, the new Mr. &amp; Mrs. Shawn Hunter had made their entrance, to great applause and cheers all around.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0336"><h2>336. Her Hope For Familiarity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wouldn’t be long before the day would be over, before Maya went and saw her parents off until their return from their honeymoon. She almost wished they didn’t have to go, not now, but then they would be back, sooner or later, and everything could be as she’d been dreaming it. She’d hold off until then.</p><p> </p><p>The reception had been, like the wedding itself, a complete success. Maya had been checking off the events one by one. Dinner: check.</p><p> </p><p>She had a table with her friends, the one nearest to where her parents sat. Their whole group dressed up, sitting in a circle, was really kind of funny for them. This wasn’t exactly a five-star restaurant, but then their usual way involved sitting wherever they managed to sit, reaching into a pizza box, more often than not still carrying the remnants of the activity of P.E. or basketball practice. Today they were as put together as they’d been, leaving them to act as though they <em>were</em> in a five-star restaurant.</p><p> </p><p>Cake cutting: check. She’d had this growing terror that something would topple over and crash. The blame for this fell on Zay, who had found videos on the internet and insisted on showing them to her. Thankfully for Katy and Shawn – and for Zay, if it had gone wrong – everything had gone just fine. The cake had been cut by the newlyweds and then the servers, who had distributed the pieces among the guests. They had debated for so long, trying to decide which flavor to go for that she barely remembered what the one they’d finally picked actually tasted like. One bite had reminded her, and she knew they’d made the right call.</p><p> </p><p>Speeches: check. There had been a number of those, some funny, others challenging many of them not to go and cry. Mr. Matthews had gone first, then Mr. Turner, Jack Hunter, Mr. Feeny, the other Mr. Matthews, Hildy, Mrs. Matthews, and then Maya herself. That part had been another one of those things Maya could hardly imagine would have been handled well if she’d still believed they were moving. She had a feeling she would have broken down right in the middle of it. That wasn’t a problem for her here, now, with her head cleared, but even so… Looking at the two of them sitting there, her happy Mom and Dad, she found she did fight some tears, happy ones though they were. She had written out her speech and that was probably for the best or she could have frozen, standing before all these people who looked to her to hear what she had to say to them. She had to keep looking at them the whole time or she would have gotten distracted. She’d made it through, with a great breath of relief and kisses blown their way.</p><p> </p><p>First dance, and first dance surprise: check and check. They had chosen their song soon enough in the preparation process, one of the things which had ended up being easiest in the long run, and after a while Maya had known that when the moment would come for them to stand up there and have their first dance, letting the band singer perform the song, as talented as the guy may have been, just wouldn’t do. So, without their ever knowing she had this planned, Maya had snuck up on the small stage area and stood at the microphone, ready to sing her mother and father into their first dance. Seeing the look on their faces when they’d heard her before ever seeing her, now that… that had been priceless.</p><p> </p><p>Dance, dance, and more dancing… check. Maya didn’t know that she’d sat still from the opening of dances after the first until they had been starting to see people leave at the end of it all. Lucas had been standing across the dance floor, waiting to lead off their own first dance as she came from the ‘stage,’ but he’d been edged out by Shawn.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I have this dance?” he asked with a smirk, so Maya placed her hand into his and they went, as she turned to mouth ‘sorry’ to her boyfriend, tilting her head to say ‘next one.’ “How’d I do?” Shawn asked in confidence.</p><p> </p><p>“The dance?” Maya asked, and he nodded. “Well you didn’t trip or step on any toes, right? I’d say that’s a win,” she teased him, and he laughed, accepting her estimate. “Hey… so you’re my dad now, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“Looks that way, yeah,” he breathed deep. “Good?”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” she nodded. “Great.” And her father had pressed a kiss to her forehead and they had danced on.</p><p> </p><p>Getting to dance with Lucas turned out to be an even more difficult enterprise than she expected. When Shawn had gone back to dance with his new wife, Maya had found her next dances claimed in turn by any number of her new extended family, from her uncle Jack to her sort-of-grandfather Mr. Turner, and then Mr. Feeny, who had spent the whole time – not unlike the others before him – telling her tales of her father’s youth, the better for her to have things to spring on him and see him go all red. That might have been one of her favorite things about that day.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, <em>finally</em>, she had turned, upon moving on after Mr. Feeny, and found herself raising her arms and coming into hold with Lucas for the next dance. “Hey, I was starting to think I’d never get here,” she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Wasn’t going to let anyone cut in again,” he declared with a smirk. She only danced nearer to him, as though to say ‘I don’t need any new partners.’ And they had danced together through six songs before she had briefly parted with him, to dance with the visiting Farkle, which had led to her sharing a dance with both Zay and Nadine in turn, before she’d found herself back in her boyfriend’s arms, there to remain for as long as they went on dancing the night away.</p><p> </p><p>Farewell to the parents… a reluctant check. When the two of them had come up to find her, she knew they were about to take off. She had hugged her mother tight, knowing how she would miss her so much. Save for those few days when Maya had gone to New York with her friends and Shawn and Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews, she had never had any extended separation from her mother, and New York was nothing compared to this really. This would be two whole weeks without her mother, and it left her with more anxiety than she would have expected. Oh, she would be fine eventually, sure, but for now it felt so wrong that they should be so far apart for so long. She said this much to her, and her mother looked like she could have cancelled the whole honeymoon and stayed with her, but Maya had tipped her back on track.</p><p> </p><p>And then with Shawn, with her father… It hadn’t been so long that he was living with them, but already she knew she was not looking forward to his being gone any more than her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“Gonna miss you, Dad,” she’d spoken as he’d hugged her, and it took her a moment to realize she’d finally done it, finally called him… and it had felt as right as though she’d been calling him that all her life. “Take lots of pictures, okay?” she added as he hugged her tight, powered by that one little word no doubt.</p><p> </p><p>“Count on it, kid.”</p><p> </p><p>They had taken off, back to the house, as Maya went off with the Matthews. Now that the day was over, she felt exhausted. It had been one big day, started, it seemed, an eternity ago, in another time when her world felt as though it was falling apart, when in truth it was coming together now more than ever. With the truth of their staying, the declaration of her love for Lucas and his love for her, with her parents’ wedding, the reception, the celebration… She could have dozed off in the car, smiling all along, but she held on, off to Riley’s house, her home for the next two weeks.</p><p> </p><p>Thinking of those weeks and all that would come after, she remembered now that it would soon be May, and that summer was coming upon them again. No real plans had been made, but whispers were getting closer and closer by the day.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0337"><h2>337. Their Evening of Opportunity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A week had gone by already since Maya’s parents had been married and departed on their honeymoon, leaving her in Mr. and Mrs. Matthews’ care. It was easy living enough. There was a time, back when they’d all been living in New York, when she might as well have been living with them for the amount of time she spent there. Things had changed since then, though not so much that she didn’t fall into the rhythm of things smoothly… for the most part.</p><p> </p><p>Things <em>had</em> changed between then and now, as she was left to learn. For one thing, they were wholly responsible for her in these two weeks, which meant they would want to make sure nothing happened ‘on their watch’ that would then be troublesome upon her parents’ return. The lightning rod to all this was Lucas. For however many times he – and the rest of their friends – had been here in the near two years the Matthews had lived in Austin, suddenly his presence in Maya’s vicinity was cause for Mr. Matthews to hover about, giving pointed looks. And when she’d wanted him to come over, just him, she had just as immediately decided that might have been the worst plan in her present situation.</p><p> </p><p>He would still come and get her in the morning, only now they didn’t have the part where they were on their own, walking from her house to Riley’s… Riley was already there, and she couldn’t very well tell her to walk ahead or behind them so they could talk, could she?</p><p> </p><p>Beyond the boyfriend lockdown, she did like getting to live with Riley. It felt like old times with the two of them, and really, she couldn’t have asked for a better gift. She got to see how much they had been missing. They’d been happy all this time, but it did seem so evident, now more than ever that they had drifted even an inch apart. But this week now gone and the one still to come, Maya knew, was letting that inch shrink away again, to both of their pleasure.</p><p> </p><p>As to her parents’ absence, she wasn’t exactly cut off from them. Every afternoon when she’d come back from school, they would call her. She would tell them about her day, and they would tell her about theirs. She could tell they were having a great time, and that was really all she could ask for. Oh, she missed them as much as she’d expected she would, probably more, too. And they missed her back, she could hear it in their voices. Her mother sounded like she would scoop her up and refuse to set her down for an hour at least when she got back. Shawn had, for his part, told her that, if she wanted it, they would have a trip, the three of them, over the summer. She had jumped at the chance in a heartbeat. A family trip.</p><p> </p><p>If she was ever worried about getting distracted by missing her parents, she didn’t have to worry, did she? The tail end of her school year was keeping her good and busy. Classes, projects, basketball, and keeping up her studies as she’d done all year… Well, she guessed that part had become easier over time… Even so, she would go to the school library to work sometimes where she could be on her own, in peace. Her friends were good enough to stay quiet as they worked, but sooner or later someone <em>would</em> talk, and then…</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” a whisper made her startle, looking up to find Lucas had come to sit across the table from her in the library. “Sorry… Do you need me to…” he motioned to say, ‘go elsewhere?’</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s fine, you get a pass,” she smirked, then, looking back down at her textbook, “For five minutes.” He looked at his watch, nodded, and she bit back a laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to go out tomorrow night?” he asked. “Capital-D Date?” he added, and she felt her smile ease itself over her face, although it came with hesitation she didn’t have to explain: how were they going to get past ‘Warden Matthews?’ “Wouldn’t want to get you busted…”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, it’d be worth it,” she shrugged. “It’ll be a… a celebration, a ‘Maya’s <em>not</em> moving far, far away’ thing.” He tipped his head; he’d celebrate <em>that</em>. “I’ll have to borrow something from Riley… She’ll have to cover for me…”</p><p> </p><p>He gave her a look as though to ask ‘will she?’ Maya held up a finger, leaned back in her chair and waved her hand across the library. Lucas was still turning around as Riley appeared, hurrying toward them. She dropped in at Maya’s side, where the blonde set the plan before her.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas and I want to go out tomorrow, will you…”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” Riley beamed before she even had to say. “He won’t even know you’re gone.” Maya turned back to Lucas with a proud grin, as she hooked her arm with her best friend of old. “I’ll be over there again,” Riley declared before getting up and scampering off back to her table, where Dylan, Nadine, and Zay also sat.</p><p> </p><p>“And that’s how you do <em>that</em>,” Maya announced. “Now I love you but please just…” she waved him off, indicating her books.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” he stood, a curve of a smile on his face. “Love you, too.” She was smiling, too, watching him go. Saying the words still had that element of a thrill about it, a week later. Those times they’d said it again, every one, had been accompanied by those smiles. They may have had some… parental obstacles, but then they had little cause for worry anymore.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0338"><h2>338. Their Evening of Escape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That night, with the date due for the following evening, the two girls had set to planning Maya’s escape, the better to ensure Riley’s parents remained unaware. Maya wondered how it would have sat with her friend if this plan was to see <em>her</em> sneaking out, too, but as Maya was the only one aiming to ‘break out,’ Riley was apparently finding no issue in helping her out. It wasn’t as though she was sneaking out to do anything wrong, it was just a date with her boyfriend, which would have seen no interference from her own parents, unlike that of her temporary guardians.</p><p> </p><p>Maya didn’t exactly <em>want</em> to lie to Cory and Topanga, after everything they’d been to her throughout the years. But she needed this, after that month of hell, and she was afraid that if she did ask and they said no, then she would be trapped, only watched closer. She would rather have her date and suffer the consequences if she was found out, than to not get to have it at all. She loved them, but she loved <em>him</em>, too, and for different reasons.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had come up with a great – some might say staggering – number of ways for them to put this escape in motion, and for a while she and Maya had amused themselves simply exploring one scheme after another, without actually focusing on whether any of them were viable. They’d laughed so hard at one that Mr. Matthews had come poking his head in out of curiosity. Maya had done some quick thinking in order to explain this away, but his departure now served to refocus them on the actual task at hand.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, they had settled on something much simpler than the extravagant plots they had entertained. They shared this plan with Lucas on the walk to school, and he was anxious to see it come to pass, though he did wonder if this would be worth it in the end; he didn’t want to get either of them in trouble. Maya reassured him; he was plenty worth it.</p><p> </p><p>So, they had made it through school. Classes were as regular as they could ever be seen to be, and then they were over. The girls were quick to head on back to Riley’s house, where Operation Date was set in motion. The plan was simple in that it had precedent. It may have been so that, once upon a time, a studious Maya Hart would have been seen as the stuff of fairy tales, but times had changed, and the Matthews, in the recent months, had been accustomed to seeing their daughter and her best friend hard at work. So that afternoon, they had set themselves up in Riley’s room.</p><p> </p><p>When Auggie had come in her room, seeking a missing toy he believed had to be there, he was dismissed. Then, after a second incursion, the girls had declared, to the boy and his parents, that they had a lot of work to do and were not to be disturbed under any circumstances (not even dinner, which was to be left outside the door) until they were done. Auggie had been helped by his mother in the search for his toy, which the girls – secretly – knew he would find in the basement.</p><p> </p><p>With the room now ‘sealed off,’ phase two had begun. Maya had changed into one of Riley’s dresses, and before long she was all set to go. All she needed was the signal from Lucas that he was at the rendezvous point. As they waited, Maya and Riley had first set things in wait for when Maya would return, before resuming their school work. It may not have been as extensive as they had let on, but it wasn’t inexistent either.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Maya’s phone buzzed, signalling Lucas had arrived. The girls looked to each other with a smirk. Riley moved to listen at the door while Maya went to the window, pulled it open and looked down. The ladder was in place, as they’d ensured earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t hear anything,” Riley whispered. “Go, go!”</p><p> </p><p>Carefully, Maya had gone through the window and to the ladder, climbing down to the ground before starting her way around the house. Ducking under windows as she went, she knew – as they’d timed things – that there was a good chance the others would be too busy to look, but they still had to be careful.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching the sidewalk, she had gone on until she could not be seen from the house before adopting a normal – if hurried – step. Lucas was waiting after all.</p><p> </p><p>Maya made it up the street, where she found her boyfriend waiting on a bench, phone still in hand as though he waited to see if she would write to say she’d been busted or something. He hadn’t spotted her yet, which went and translated itself into ‘must sneak up on and scare.’</p><p> </p><p>The screech was so unexpectedly sharp that she laughed as he turned to her, realizing she’d been the one to grab his shoulders from behind. He was smiling now, but he still looked like his heart was going a mile a minute. She sat next to him, took hold of his arm.</p><p> </p><p>“You alright there, Huckleberry?” she asked, grinning with mischief. “You look spooked.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, not me, no, I…” he blinked, and she shook her head, standing and pulling him to his feet.</p><p> </p><p>“We better get going before I have to get back in there.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0339"><h2>339. Their Evening of Celebration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Walking along as they did, hand in hand, it could have felt like any other day. It could be any other morning where the two of them would walk off on their way to get Riley and head to school. But then they hadn’t done that, not over the last week, with her staying with the Matthews, and now, actually doing it, if for other reasons and headed some other place, it was like things were as they should be again. Him and her, hands together, and happy.</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, the realization that she would be staying, for the two of them, had gone and turned into the two of them looking ahead, making plans. This was mostly aimed to the summer to come. It was impossible to make any big plans, anything with specific dates. There was only one of those, same as every year, the Babineaux family party, but then there was no date for that yet either. The thing that was keeping them from figuring anything out in particular was the trip Shawn had said he would take Maya and her mother on. They didn’t know where they’d go, or when, or for how long.</p><p> </p><p>“Farkle might be here while you’re gone,” Lucas told her. “My mother’s already been making plans with his about having him stay with us like last summer.”</p><p> </p><p>“One of these days she’s just not going to let him go back, you know?” she chuckled, and he sort of had to do the same; he knew how much his mother enjoyed having Farkle stay with them. When he and his family had come down for Maya’s parents’ wedding, she had welcomed the boy like one of their own returned. “And Smackle’s going to stay with Riley this year when she comes. I would have liked to have her stay at my house again, but then she’d have to move anyway if she’ll be here when we’re gone, so…” She would miss having her there, but this was right.</p><p> </p><p>“And we’ve got the camping trip,” he reminded her, as though he needed to.</p><p> </p><p>“And I’m supposed to do more studying with Nadine and Asher, I told her once a week,” Maya added. “And I’ll probably work at the diner again. I might ask Asher if they’ll let me stay on year-round, if I can make it work… probably not…” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>He’d get this little smile as they’d talk about this, and of course she knew what it was about. It was the smile that said ‘we’re not getting separated, we can think about the future.’ She wasn’t unfamiliar with that sentiment herself, was she? Before the whole disaster of her believing she would be leaving Austin, she had been going about her days never really thinking about the time to come as anything more than… the time to come. Then she’d believed that time wouldn’t come, not with them in the same place, and it had been such a horrible feeling, though of course it had come to an end. Now it could have been that everything was back as it had been, like nothing had changed, but that wasn’t true. Everything <em>had</em> changed. Now the days to come were more: they were a gift, and she would be as thankful for them as she would a physical one.</p><p> </p><p>She thought it, and so did he. They had confessed their love for one another, back at the wedding, when the weight of her assumed departure had been lifted. They’d said the words, and they’d meant them, and Lucas was finding all that, as the days went by after the wedding. And as he reflected on it more and more, he saw how much he was still learning about what that all meant to him, and how much <em>she</em> meant to him. Strong as they’d vowed to be in their separation, now that it wasn’t happening, it felt like he could be more honest with himself. He knew he would have been crushed, ripped apart, without her there. His girlfriend, yes, but before all that his best friend from New York, and just… Someone so important to his life…</p><p> </p><p>“Hey…” he felt a prodding at his arm, finally, and he knew she must have been poking a few times already by the insistence of it. He reached to rub at his arm, looking at her. “You do know where we’re going, right? Because I don’t, and you’re just sort of… walking like you’re not in there. You <em>are</em> in there, yeah?” she asked, her finger coming up at the ready to poke him again if need be. He caught her hand before she could reach her target. “Hey!” she complained, weak as it came off, seeing as she was laughing. He looked around.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh…” he realized she had a point; they had gone further than they were supposed to go. There was no point in his pretending like she hadn’t been right, and one look back at her was all that was needed to show she knew it, too. He could do nothing else but smile back at her, kiss her quick, and start them back to where they were supposed to go.</p><p> </p><p>“I guess I’ll give you a pass on that one,” she intoned. “It <em>is</em> a very good day, for you, and me, and us… And hopefully no one else, if all goes according to plan… which I realize I shouldn’t say because now it definitely will go wrong, won’t it…”</p><p> </p><p>“Not today,” he promised. “We earned today.”</p><p> </p><p>“We did… thanks to snooping… and misunderstandings…” she frowned to herself. “But that’s behind us now. Now we have the end of the year, and summer, and everything.”</p><p> </p><p>“I like the sound of ‘everything,’” he breathed out. “Especially with you.” She felt she must have been blushing, but she didn’t mind it. He made her feel happy, day to day… and she liked the sound of everything with him, too.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0340"><h2>340. Their Evening of Simplicity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could have taken her anywhere and she would have been content. Still, he didn’t want to take her to the same places they always went either. Keeping in mind that they were essentially on a clock, he’d dug deep in his memory to try and come up with some restaurant he might be familiar with that she had somehow not gone to in the near three years of her living in Austin.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t known for sure if he’d aimed right, until they came up to the door and Maya reacted with wide eyes and a straight back which told him she was at once curious. It was by no means any place fancy, but they served breakfast all day long and they had his favorite pancakes. It was a wonder he hadn’t told her about it before, but maybe it all worked out for the best; he got to bring her now.</p><p> </p><p>“Counter or booth?” she asked as they went in, and as soon as she said it, he remembered something and scanned the room before zeroing in on one booth, which was empty.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” he led her to the booth and they sat across from one another. When she asked about the look on his face, he explained at once. “You know that booth, at the diner where your mom used to work in New York? The one where you carved your name?”</p><p> </p><p>“The one where you carved yours, too, and I banged my head, and we kissed for the first time? Do I remember?” she teased, then after a beat, “Wait, did you…” She pointed to under the table before leaning to try and get a look. “I see it!” she reported. “Well, I see L and U.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, my father caught me and I had to stop there. I was grounded for a month and had to give over my allowance I’d just received as a tip before we left. I completely forgot all that until just now. I’m surprised I remembered which booth it was.” She was trying so hard not to laugh, but her ears were turning red. “So, it looks like we have one of these in New York and in Austin, too,” he carried on.</p><p> </p><p>“We do,” she agreed with a nod. “Although… the one in New York has both of our names, and this one has… ‘Lu,’” she pointed out with a smirk. He didn’t have to guess what she was thinking. He shook his head, as though his protest might stop her. “Two letters? Ma?”</p><p> </p><p>The booth was saved from any imminent alterations by the waitress coming to take their order. After a rapid consultation with the blissfully patient woman, their orders were in, they were left to talk, and the booth’s marking was forgotten.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I’ve been thinking I’d like to have a dog, too,” Maya revealed as they waited. “Or two, or three,” she shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“I could see that,” he nodded. “Big or small?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, depends on the dog, I guess,” she replied. “I figure I can run it by my parents when they get back, they’ll be all relaxed and happy from the honeymoon, perfect moment to strike,” she motioned.</p><p> </p><p>“I could see you with a big dog, like really big. Great, big, shaggy thing, that’s all over the place.”</p><p> </p><p>“I believe we have one of those already, he’s called Dylan,” she chuckled, and he laughed, too. “If they say yes, you’ll come with me to go and find one?” He nodded; of course, he would. “Maybe we should bring Dash, too… they’ll have to get along.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he smiled, imagining it, him, her, and the dogs. “I think I heard one of the guys on the team say something about his dog having had puppies… or about to… Maybe they’ll be looking to give or sell them…” Now she had to know, he could see. So, he texted Asher about it, figuring he’d be the one to know, their guy with the connections. Before their order had even come, Asher had replied to point them in the direction of Ray Choi, one of the sophomore players, and a text to him had established that the puppies had yet to be born, and of course Maya was welcome to get a look at them to have when they were. She was so happy about it, even if she didn’t have the okay from her parents yet, and really, he couldn’t have asked for more.</p><p> </p><p>The span of their meal’s conversation didn’t wander too far away from the subject of dogs, with the two of them discussing potential names for the puppy – or puppies – she might bring into her home. It could not have gone any better, as dinners went. And on the memory of that other booth, whether or not this one was marked with one or both of their names, Maya had sealed that by moving to his side of the booth and taking hold of both of his hands, just as she’d done, that day in New York.</p><p> </p><p>“No head bumps this time?” he smirked.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but if it helps, I’m dizzy all the same,” she promised with a nod as they both leaned in for a kiss. That first one, already more than a year before this one, had been sort of shy, tentative, curious, sort of confused… This one was none of those, but it didn’t in any way make it any less special, oh no. However, many they’d had or would have in times to come, they would all be as important as the one before or after.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0341"><h2>341. Their Evening of Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The restaurant was left behind, an unspoken vow passed between them deciding that they would have to come again in the future… maybe one of those days to carve in some more letters under that booth. For now, although they needed to start on their way back to the Matthews’ house, not wanting to push their luck, they stopped to pick up ice cream for the trip back. Lucas may not have been able to escort her all the way back to the door, but he’d get her as near to it as he could. Sneaking around or not, he had his manners.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had been sure that she would only get more and more antsy about their being caught before she made it back, which was really an odd idea on its own. It used to be that she’d go out and not worry herself at all. Of course, her circumstances had changed, and so had she, in ways she did not regret at all. And if she could prevent herself – and Lucas – from being caught out, well…</p><p> </p><p>She’d thought she would be nervous, yes, only she wasn’t. Carried off on this good mood, this simple but happy evening with her boyfriend, eating pancakes, now ice cream, talking about dogs, and basketball, and memories of first kisses… Nothing could bring her down.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, that’s a brain freeze,” Lucas’ face squeezed in and Maya laughed in sympathy, reaching up to his forehead to help him in what way she could. Before long she could see it was gone, though he said nothing to incite her to stop what she was doing.</p><p> </p><p>“How long do you think I can keep doing this – let me remind you, sitting at a bus stop – before it gets weird?” she asked him, though of course at no time did she stop while putting the question to him.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t actually know,” he admitted. After a moment, she stopped and put her hand back down. “I <em>do</em> have some ice cream left,” he pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“You do indeed,” she slowly nodded. “Better be careful.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” he agreed. “You, too.” She laughed, and then he did the same, just as the bus arrived and they got on. “Won’t be long before I can drive, then we won’t have to take the bus like this anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I kind of like taking the bus with you,” she shrugged. “And walking in the morning… Although you could just drive to Riley’s, leave the car there, then come to my house, and…” she motioned what amounted to ‘ta-da!’</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, whatever you want,” he tipped his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t have to be,” she considered aloud. “I want you to be happy, too, and I know that’s what you’re trying to do for me. I want the same for you, you know that, right? I know how much you’ve been looking forward to being able to drive on your own.” And he had. Somewhere in all those study sessions she’d been having, he’d been studying for <em>that</em> test, and she would quiz him on his stuff like he’d quiz her on hers. Pappy Joe had been taking him out to practice, and he’d been doing great.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, maybe I can go pick you up, with the car, and… we take a detour so it lasts as long… That’s if I even get the car like that.”</p><p> </p><p>Getting down from the bus, ice cream all done – without further brain freeze incidents – they went on their way toward the point where they would have to part ways for the night. Maya had resisted the urge until then to check and ensure she had no 911 texts from Riley to tell her anything had gone awry, but she checked now: They were still in the all clear.</p><p> </p><p>“We still have a few minutes,” she declared; she and Riley had set a limit hour for Maya to make her return. “Walk slower,” she gave his arm a light tug, and he slowed. “Seeing as this is the longest time we’ll get to spend alone together outside of school until my parents get back… Hey, so are there any drive-in theaters around here?” she asked. He thought for a moment, giving a nod before catching on to what she might have been hinting at. What better way for them to benefit from his imminent driver capacities?</p><p> </p><p>“Next month,” he announced, taking his own turn at having an idea and letting her connect the dots. It took a moment more, but then she had a smile that said she had understood. Next month, it would be half a year that they were together, officially. She was amazed, and so was he. Six months had just nearly flown by them.</p><p> </p><p>“Next month, drive-in… midversary,” she called it. That was decided. They didn’t know just what movie they would get to see, but it wouldn’t be so important as their being there for it.</p><p> </p><p>The distance to the splitting point was growing shorter and shorter. It wasn’t as though they wouldn’t see each other in a long time; they’d probably see each other the next day. Even so, it was very easy for them to make a bigger deal out of it all. Maya certainly liked being dramatic about it, and Lucas was all too pleased to play into her game like they were spies on the prowl, about to part ways on a mission.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0342"><h2>342. Their Evening of Returns</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If she walked just two steps onward now, she would be within view if anyone in the house stood at a window on that side of it: this was where they had to say their goodnight. After that, she’d be sneaking on the way she knew how. If he hadn’t gotten an all-clear in a number of minutes, he was supposed to call the house and ask for Riley, help create a diversion.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Huckleberry dear, this is it,” Maya addressed him in a voice that would have been right at home in some old black and white sort of gangster movie. The way she looked at him was giving the same impression, and he didn’t know if he could pull <em>that</em> off, but he could give her the closest thing, some old west outlaw.</p><p> </p><p>“Looks that way, miss,” he tipped his head, and oh how she was hanging on to her persona so hard right there. “Tell you what, that was a fine job we pulled, you and I,” he declared. “Never was one as pretty as you,” he gave a tip of a non-existent hat.</p><p> </p><p>“You sure know how to make a damsel swoon, but don’t you worry that face of yours, I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeves,” she promised, never minding the lack of actual sleeves on her borrowed dress. Their little game could have lasted a while more, they knew, but then she really had to get moving. Looking to one another, knowing this much and wishing they didn’t have to split off so soon, the two sneaks had momentarily lost track of time in a kiss that was to be a short goodbye. It was just as well she had set a timer on her phone or they would have forgotten everything but that they were very much in love and felt nowhere more at peace than where they were now.</p><p> </p><p>But the phone did give its sound, and it was enough to force its owner to scramble to silence it. Maya looked back to Lucas, the pair of them chuckling before she held up her hand in a small wave and turned to head toward the Matthews house.</p><p> </p><p>He watched her go, deciding he’d be better off waiting a moment or two before taking off back toward home. He knew Maya had been very willing to sneak out like this, but if she got caught heading back in, he would rather own up to his part in this than let her take all the blame on her own. It wasn’t as though they’d done anything wrong, except for the whole covert ops business. Sure, they’d kind of liked the sneaking around, but there they were now.</p><p> </p><p>They’d get it, wouldn’t they? Mr. and Mrs. Matthews? They’d been their age once, and from what he’d been hearing for a while, they’d been together back then, too. Maybe his future and Maya’s were still being written, and the things he imagined were little more than that, imaginations of a teenage boy, but he didn’t feel they would be, so he would work off the assumption he had an eye to reality, to its heart if not in exact detail…</p><p> </p><p>When he got the message from Maya to let him know all was good, he allowed his feet to take him back on his way home.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t known it could be possible to feel so strongly for a person, not until she’d come into his life. But then she <em>had</em> come, and now… Now she stood like a pillar in his life. He had his family, his future, his friends… and her. None could stand on their own, he needed them, and if they needed him back, they had him.</p><p> </p><p>Almost half a year gone now since they’d taken that leap forward, and it still felt they were caught in this great whirlwind of the new and bright together. Especially now, with her presumed departure, it felt like that drive forward had been regenerated, fueled by three words from each of them. Maybe in time it would all calm down and settle again, but as far as he was concerned, he was in no hurry.</p><p> </p><p>He arrived back home to find his father sitting in wait outside, and for a moment he hesitated. Had Maya been found out after all? Had Mr. Matthews called his parents and told on him?</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he greeted his father, as casual as he could. His father nodded at him as he came up the steps.</p><p> </p><p>“You two have a good evening?” his father asked just as casually. Lucas hesitated, looked back at him. “Your grandfather owes me ten now, he was under the impression you’d make it the whole two weeks.” He gave a sort of laugh which Lucas interpreted – correctly, he hoped – as meaning there’d been no call from Mr. Matthews; his father had just seen it coming. “Well?” he asked, and it took a moment for him to remember the original question.</p><p> </p><p>“We… we did,” he confirmed with a nod. His father looked at him for a moment, nodded back, then got up and opened the door for them to go back in. “You and Pappy Joe bet on us?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, once or twice,” his father clapped his shoulder. “I haven’t lost yet.” He was joking, about all of it, Lucas realized now, and he had to laugh to himself. He was getting to like this more comical side in his father. How close he’d come to losing that once…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0343"><h2>343. Their Evening of Confidence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As she made her way through the dark, along the side of the Matthews’ house, she stopped just next to the ladder where she found the cord dangling, right where she’d left it that morning. She gave two short tugs, waited. Ten seconds later, she got two return tugs: Riley would stand by the door, and she was clear to come up. She didn’t waste time.</p><p> </p><p>As soon as she was back in the room, and while Riley continued to stand at the door, Maya shut the window and went about changing back into the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d last been seen by Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews, stuck the borrowed dress in Riley’s hamper, and with her hair released and pulled back into a lazy ponytail, she breathed out and texted Lucas, all clear. Her lookout remained at the door until Maya went up to her and pulled her back to go and sit on the bed, amid their textbooks spread out across the surface. As far as she could see, Riley had been turning the pages on both books as she’d gone on studying, as though it had been the two of them, and as though it would have fooled her parents if either of them came in.</p><p> </p><p>“So… no one came to check on ‘us?’” Maya asked, air-quoting.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, everything went fine, no problem,” Riley rapidly vowed, the better to get to her very important question: “How’d it go?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, he took me to this place called Ma Maggie’s, we had pancakes.” Riley’s eyes turned bright with envy. She didn’t know what <em>she</em>’d had for dinner – she would have had to have two plates of it – but Maya guessed she would have much rather have had pancakes, too.</p><p> </p><p>“I saw that once, I think. Was it good?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was <em>so</em> good, mine had…” She stopped when there was a knock at the door; they both froze, looking at the door, then each other, and the door again. As one, they picked up their books, dropped them into their laps and tried to pull themselves into positions more suggestive of two girls studying.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes?” Riley called out, and after a moment the door opened to reveal it was Topanga.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it safe to come in again?” she asked, a barely disguised smirk on her face. “Wouldn’t want to intrude.” Given the all-clear, she shut the door and came up to the bed, clearing herself a corner so she might sit with them. Though Riley didn’t seem to understand much of what this all meant. Maya understood almost as soon as Topanga had come into the room. Still, she kept up her face, showing nothing, even as Riley’s mother turned to look at her. “So? How was your evening, Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“We got a lot of work done,” Riley cut in with a response, evidently dedicated to holding up a lie so clearly uncovered. “You know, once we were left to our studies without any…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Honey…” Maya reached out to her arm so she would stop. “When did you know?” she asked Topanga.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, somewhere around Cory turning into the Guardian of Virtue, I didn’t know <em>when</em>, but it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? And the two of you scheming always has a very distinct pattern to it. Between the three of us, you could have been busted about half a dozen times tonight if it wasn’t for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do?” Maya smiled with gratitude, only slightly surprised at Topanga’s allying herself to her ‘cause’ in secret.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, I’ve had Cory Matthews in my pocket for the better part of our lives,” she declared, much to the girls’ amusement. “You know, everything this week, it’s because he cares about you so much,” she told Maya, who nodded, promising she did know. “Now, come on,” Topanga motioned toward her, “I want details.” Now both mother and daughter were sat looking to Maya for the tale of her secret date.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, like I was telling Riley, we went to Ma Maggie’s, had pancakes…” This brought in another interruption, this one from Riley to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“If you knew she wasn’t there, why’d you let me have to eat all that?” she protested.</p><p> </p><p>“You still lied, sweetie, you’re lucky that’s the worst you’re getting,” Topanga replied, and Riley didn’t argue again.</p><p> </p><p>Maya went on, telling them about their dinner that was really breakfast. She left out the tale of ‘Lu’ and the matching carvings back in New York. Somehow it just felt like the kind of thing she’d rather keep between him and her, and not just because it involved what boiled down to vandalism.</p><p> </p><p>But she did tell them about their plans for their six-month anniversary. Topanga pointed out it was a good thing she’d be back in her parents’ care by then, while Riley sighed happily, thinking how her best friend was doing so well. Maya also told them about her canine wishes, and the possibility of her adopting puppies from Ray Choi.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom?” Riley eagerly turned to her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“Chelsea the Fish?” Topanga countered, silencing the unspoken request at once. Maya had heard much about the misadventures of the class fish in the year before the Matthews had relocated and joined her in Austin.</p><p> </p><p>The story continued with the ice cream after the pancakes and the start back for home, leading up to her covert-not-so-covert return back into the room, and how much neither of them wanted the evening to end yet. Riley and her mother both looked enthralled by the tale, which could be anywhere between funny and odd.</p><p> </p><p>“Tonight stays between us,” Topanga told the girls as she eventually headed out. “I wouldn’t repeat it until you’re back home, okay, Maya?”</p><p> </p><p>“I swear,” she nodded.</p><p> </p><p>They soon started getting ready for bed, and Maya reached for her phone. She’d tell Lucas about their secret guardian angel the next day. For now, she found he had written her back to say he’d made it back, too. It wasn’t as though she would have been hounding him with messages if he hadn’t told her already, but it did feel like a relief. She couldn’t help it. She liked to know that all was well with him.</p><p> </p><p>‘Good night, Girlfriend Gal,’ he’d added, and she just had to chuckle. Somehow the ridiculously direct nicknames had stuck in some messages between them over time.</p><p> </p><p>‘Sweet dreams, Boyfriend Guy,’ she wrote back.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t speak to his dreams that night, but hers were overrun with tiny yapping dogs, crawling around her feet. There was no saying how long it would be before Ray Choi’s dog had her puppies, but she knew she’d be awaiting the day with much anticipation. Sure, she didn’t exactly have her parents’ approval just yet, and she would have to… unless she just brought the puppies home… because how could anyone say no to puppies?</p><p> </p><p>She really wanted her parents home already. It was time for them to live as a family, the three of them… and those puppies… hopefully. She loved staying with Riley, but she wanted her own home maybe now more than ever.</p><p> </p><p>In her dream, the puppies would hide under a table, and looking for them, Maya would find it was the one from Ma Maggie’s, with ‘Lu’ carved into the wall. It had all just been forgotten, hadn’t it? Her own letters… Well, who knew? Maybe someday this booth would bear both their names just as its twin did in New York.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0344"><h2>344. Their State of Home Care</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the first of May, Lucas and Maya started out what they would eventually come to call the Midyear Kickoff. Today, six months ago, after equal shares of consultation with friends and family, they had come to stand before one another and said… let’s go. Almost a year had preceded this day, a near year which had <em>felt</em> like a near year. These six months had felt like the blink of an eye… a blink loaded with joy, briefly interrupted in that one terrible month, but even so…</p><p> </p><p>On that day, the Hunter-Hart house officially decided it would be joined by its newest members, in the form of not one, or two, but three puppies. Going into this, she had succeeded in convincing her parents on one, though somewhere in her head she’d been thinking about two. Only then the puppies had been born, and when Ray Choi had told her about how it had all gone on, that had changed. Ray’s dog had five puppies, only two had not lived. Soon as she’d heard, Maya felt, she knew… there’d be no separating the three that had lived. Her argument must have worked, because before long she had the go ahead from her mother and father. All three puppies were coming to live with them.</p><p> </p><p>They were still so small, and they would remain with Ray and his family for some weeks still. But Maya had started visiting, helping with the care of the puppies along with Ray, and Lucas, and any number of their friends. The biggest thing so far had been to name them. They were hers to name, and she took the task with great interest even before they had been in this world. Suggestions had come, left and right, in the first days of May, until finally it had been decided. Whether she’d meant to or not, she guessed she had already named them in her head. They were called Ghost, Queen, and Tuck. No one could figure it out, and she got way too amused over it.</p><p> </p><p>She really couldn’t wait to have them home, with her and her family. From the day her parents had come home, it had been all she’d wanted.</p><p> </p><p>Shawn and Katy had come along, as they’d been meant to, bringing the truck of Shawn’s belongings, those he’d chosen to bring along, not throwing away or selling. They’d arrived on a Saturday morning, sending Maya updates on their approach so that, when they came up, she was sitting in front of the house, waiting, with Riley and her family.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother had been the first out of the truck, and when Maya had come running, she’d had the look in her eyes her daughter must have had, too. She’d never been apart from her for so long and she was just so relieved to be reunited with her. Maya had just smiled, as her mother held her tight and went on and on about how much she had been missed in these past two weeks. She looked like she didn’t want to let go of her, even as Shawn came along and wanted his own hugs.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s time,” Katy had replied, attempting not to relinquish Maya, though finally she had stepped aside, receiving a quiet thanks from the new husband, who could now hold his daughter. The two of them had missed and been missed just as much.</p><p> </p><p>The reunions extended into the process of unpacking the truck and starting to place the items through the house. Certain items were relegated to storage in the basement, though by the time the unpacking had been finished, the place did look like it belonged to the three of them.</p><p> </p><p>Back on that night, somewhere after dinner, Shawn had come into her room, carrying a box. She had seen it in the truck earlier, though he had told her he’d handle it. Now he came and he set it before her.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s this?” she asked, looking over to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Just some things that I thought… well, I wanted you to have them, I wanted to… to pass them on to you, as your father,” he revealed. Even he still had that sort of stunned look in his eyes whenever he said it. He also just looked so… proud, that he got to give her this box. She’d pulled it open, looked inside. The objects inside were so varied from one another that she could imagine him setting them in there while he was packing. The Maya box…</p><p> </p><p>“Is it alright if I don’t go through all of it at once?” she’d asked, taking in the great number of items. “So that I can just sort of take it in slowly, get to appreciate it all.” He’d told her that of course, of course she could. So, she’d reached in, pulled out one object. It was a small worn book.</p><p> </p><p>“I swiped it off of Turner’s shelves when I lived with him,” he’d revealed. “I don’t even know how many times I must have read it, but it always did me good.”</p><p> </p><p>She’d read that book now, once, and she was reading it over a second time already. She would sit in her bay window, late at night, reading by flashlight and moon, and she would imagine Shawn Hunter, somewhere about her age, over in Philadelphia. She would think of the boy who would grow into the man who was now her father, and she would just feel like he’d grown that much more anchored to her, his past now part of her history.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0345"><h2>345. Their State of Game Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It seemed only a moment ago that they were standing in the hall, being ridiculously anxious to find out whether they had made the basketball teams, and now they were looking to the impending end of that year’s season. How that could even be possible was as much a mystery as was any other reflection on time passed, sure, but still… Looking back now, they couldn’t remember not having been part of their respective teams.</p><p> </p><p>Today, Lucas found himself just as he always was on days where the girls’ team was playing, which was in the stands, with the other guys, and Riley, and Rebecca, and Maya and Nadine’s families. He and Maya had developed something, in the early days of their relationship. They’d come up with a short call they could do while up in the stands so the one out there playing could hear it and they’d know who it was. He gave that call now, as she stood out there, waiting, and she twisted around at once, scanning until she found him. When she did, she smirked, made a face, then scampered when she heard the coach’s whistle. Neither of them was exactly innocent of accidentally making that call, not knowing they’d be distracting the other at just about the wrong time.</p><p> </p><p>He loved being up here, watching her play. For someone who had joined their middle school team the year before – by her own admission – with little more motivation than that she chose to follow a friend, it didn’t come off that way anymore. Maya Hart was one of their star players. Not that she went around acting as though she was. If anything, he was almost sure she didn’t realize it. She’d just go out there because she loved to play, and it showed.</p><p> </p><p>Even so, and he didn’t think anyone outside of him and Riley knew, she was coming to the point where she feared a time would come where she would have to make a choice, to give something up. It was the advanced classes, next year. She’d only worked to gain her place in those to keep Nadine on the team with her at first. But now she was saying how the prospect of the actual workload, along with the team, and everything else in her life, was starting to really sink in. And what it came down to was that she was afraid it would all be too much for her.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t sure what to tell her. He definitely didn’t have that increased workload to worry over, and he knew she wanted to keep working at the diner, too. Maybe it <em>would</em> be too much, or maybe… maybe it was all looking so big now because it was coming up and it was still sort of unknown to her. Maybe she would know once the next year started?</p><p> </p><p>When the game had ended, he and the others had gone to wait for Maya and Nadine to emerge so they could head out. Maya was already supposed to go and spend some time with the puppies, and he was going out there with her today. In time he would bring Dash, too, but they would wait.</p><p> </p><p>When the girls had joined them, and after they’d all talked about the game for a while, Lucas and Maya had split off from the others and started on their way to Ray Choi’s house. As they went, he told her how he’d been thinking about her and her conundrum over the following year. As expected, the mere mention of it made her frown to herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, we have a few weeks before they even hold tryouts, yeah?” he asked her, and she nodded. “Then just don’t decide yet. Let the weeks go by, and if you don’t think you can add basketball, then don’t. But if you think you can…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, kind of figured that,” she told him. “That’s not really the thing though.” He asked what it was then. “The thing is, I…” she sighed, “I <em>want</em> to do it all. I want to keep playing, but I also want to keep doing better in class like I have. If I don’t join the team, I could end up regretting it every day, and if I <em>do</em> join… maybe I’ll do it for the wrong reasons, because I <em>want</em> to play instead of because I should. Then it’ll be too late, no going back on it, and instead of doing good on one thing or the other, I’ll crash out of both.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… right,” he frowned to himself. All he could ever want would be to help her, if anything ever came to trouble her; he knew she’d do the same for him, and she had. This one though… He could see why she was feeling so conflicted; he couldn’t see the way out either. “You have all summer to decide, to think it over. You don’t need to decide now, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” she nodded. “Except these last games could be <em>my</em> last games.”</p><p> </p><p>Lucas put his arm around her shoulders as they walked on, and she leaned into the hold with a smile. Without saying a word of it, they’d both put the topic aside. They completed the walk to Ray Choi’s talking over the game the girls had played that morning. They had started off slow, but then the moment they’d started to rise, they’d only kept on climbing until they reached victory.</p><p> </p><p>“You ever going to tell me what the names mean?” he asked as they came up to the house. “Don’t I get, like… boyfriend privileges or something?” She looked at him, chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought for sure you’d figure it out on your own. Now I’m just not going to tell you so you can figure it out on your own,” she declared, leaving him with little to go on but to try and solve her riddle. Ghost, Queen, Tuck… It had to be right there for him to find, and he was missing it. Well… He’d have to find a way around that.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0346"><h2>346. Their State of Warmth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After spending a couple of hours with the puppies, Maya had asked if Lucas wanted to come and have dinner at her house, just as he’d wanted to do the same for her. It had come down to rock-paper-scissors, and now they were coming up to the Friar house. Lucas knew his parents were off visiting some friends of theirs, which left the two of them on their own until they’d return.</p><p> </p><p>Grabbing snacks from the kitchen had started them talking about the “midversary,” and so they’d gone up to his room, sitting side by side at his computer to look into the drive-in and what movies would be playing there that day. With her sitting there, the plate of cookies balanced on her folded knees as she munched along and watched him browse, it looked as though she was already at the theater. She would meet each suggestion with a noise to say ‘maybe’ or one to say ‘absolutely not.’</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I told my grandfather about us going to the drive-in, and he just started telling me these stories about him and my grandmother going there years ago. I had to stop him after a while, it was getting a bit too… uh…” he couldn’t bring himself to explain, but he didn’t have to, going off of how Maya snorted in reply. “I’m not sure why he told me all of that, if he thought that I… that we…” He stopped again, and when she saw his face had gone sort of flushed, she gasped.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Lucas Friar</em>, why, I never,” she spoke dramatically, knowing no better way to diffuse the situation. He chuckled, scratching at the back of his head, which was no doubt his way to allow himself to look away for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, it wasn’t as though she wasn’t seeing what Pappy Joe had been getting at. When she’d told her parents that Lucas was taking her to the drive-in, they’d both looked up at her, then at each other, exchanging a look even she could decipher. Since then, they’d both looked like they wanted to say something, but didn’t dare to, didn’t even know how to formulate their question. If they’d just ask it already they’d probably have their concerns calmed, but then she was so taken aback that they would think it that she decided to let them stew.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, that one!” she pointed at the screen. “Did you see the first one?” He nodded. “What do you think?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think it sounds good,” he smiled, and she held out a cookie to him in reward. He kept on looking back at her, continually stunned to think how their lives had changed in half a year. Plenty was the same, sure, but him and her, being together, it had turned his world on to a new array of colors he’d never seen before. When he looked at her, he could see them all.</p><p> </p><p>“Earth to Huckleberry,” she stretched out her foot to nudge him, in the process nearly toppling the plate and the remaining cookies but catching them before they could fall, and in <em>that</em> attempt almost tipping her chair back. She righted herself all at once, while Lucas reached out to help at the same time. “So, you <em>are</em> awake,” she laughed, with the breathless surprise of her near fall.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m right here,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” she now offered him one more cookie before scooping up the other two and putting the plate on his desk. Turning sideways on the chair so to face him, she stopped when she heard the telltale sounds of the dog jangling toward the room just as she came along. “Hide the cookies,” Maya held them out to him, and Lucas quickly stashed them in a drawer while Maya stood and went to pick up the dog. “Hey… hi!” she beamed. “Want to go in the yard? Let’s go in the yard,” she declared.</p><p> </p><p>Soon they were out there, sat on the grass, with Dash and her favorite ball, tossing it and watching the pup scamper after it before bringing it back. No matter which of them threw it. Dash would always bring it back to Maya, who’d taken up position face down and propped up on elbows, which Dash took as an invitation to go and sit on her back, much to her amusement. Lucas, sitting cross-legged next to her, would throw the ball again and then the whole routine would start once more.</p><p> </p><p>“How long do you think she’ll keep going?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, as long as we keep throwing, probably,” she told him as they watched Dash try to sort out where the ball had ended up when the last throw had sent it near the shed. “Or until she tires herself out looking,” Maya shrugged, turning to look at him. “That could take a while,” she decided, twisting on to her back so to rest her head against his knee. “There, that’s better.”</p><p> </p><p>There was really little more that she could have asked for, a quiet time, resting here with the boy she loved, absently brushing at her hair as he watched the dog on her ongoing search for the ball. A May afternoon, a clear blue sky, a warm day, him and her…</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, look out,” Lucas smirked, just as Dash came trotting back victoriously and deposited the ball at Maya’s side, nudging it with her nose as though to say ‘see, Blondie, I found it, now throw it again.’</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing gets by you, huh,” Maya reached out a hand to scratch at the dog’s ear.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0347"><h2>347. Their State of Team Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The girls’ team would gather for sort of informal practice games at Julianne Shelby’s house, as the girl had a pair of hoops set in her yard, the ground paved in between. The way Mr. Shelby had it, their family was something of a legacy, to which his daughter would only give a roll of the eyes before leading her teammates out to play. This also included Riley, who may not have been <em>on</em> the team, but was such a presence that she might as well have been, as far as the girls were concerned.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright!” she declared, facing the dozen girls stood around her. As had come to be tradition, she would assign the teams, grabbing the box of armbands. “Team Orange!” she bellowed, walking back and forth, making the girls laugh. “Maya,” she held out the first cuff to her best friend, who accepted it graciously, slipping it over her arm. “Sofia, Ana with one N, Anna with two… and…” she hesitated before nodding to herself and holding out the last orange band to… “Heather.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who are you sitting out this time?” asked one of the others, before Riley could approach her with the first green armband.</p><p> </p><p>“Rachel,” she announced, undisturbed, “Team Green. And… Nadine, Julianne… Riya, and…” she considered the last three. Reminding Riley that the third, Lizzy, had sat out the last two of these for having been sick, the other two, Melanie and Tasha, had pointed to her. “Lizzy, yes,” Riley had given over the last green. “Go teams!” she shouted, and the orange and green split off, leaving the others to sit in wait.</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” Maya looked to her team as they stood off at one end of the yard. Sofia Velazquez was in her class, her older sister Ana was a senior, while Anna and Heather were both sophomores. “Who’s leading?” The girls looked among themselves. Like the teams, they liked to pass this around, too, giving all of them the chance to step into that role, to develop those skills. Today, they turned back to Maya, and that was all they needed to do for her to know: they were putting her in lead. “Right,” she tipped her head, “Okay. So, here’s how we do this.” She looked to her teammates, and she looked to the team on the other side. Two seniors, a junior, a sophomore and a freshman… and she could tell which of <em>them</em> had been put in charge this time, too.</p><p> </p><p>Before long, Orange and Green would move back toward each other, Maya at the front of one group, Nadine in front of the other. As much as the other ten girls on the team had started out as strangers to her, today they were great friends, all of them. But Nadine had been with her from the beginning, she was in her inner circle. The two of them leading opposing teams called for a lot more talking back at each other, but really it would be about seeing if either of them broke and laughed.</p><p> </p><p>The game had gone down about as Maya had imagined it would. Riley had stacked each team with more or less equal levels of skill, which she could do, having spent almost as much time as their coach had done, watching them all at practice and at play. So really it would come down as much to how Maya and Nadine had instructed their teams as how they managed to do against that other team, on that day. On the sidelines, Riley, Melanie, and Tasha were all cheering loudly and calling at them to do one thing or another. In the end, with a tie breaker, Team Green had lost out to Team Orange.</p><p> </p><p>For Maya it was a win both thrilling and bittersweet. What if it was one of the last times she got to do this? At the same time, was she supposed to take more from this? Was it telling her that she was supposed to stick around?</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, can I talk to you?” She looked up from where she’d been looking at the “Shelby Shrine,” as Julianne mockingly called it. There stood Riya Chari, their team’s actual captain. “You okay? You just kind of took off after that,” she gestured back toward the doors to the yard. Riya was ridiculously tall, especially standing next to her. But she would look down at her like they might as well have been of equal heights. When they were at play, she was the leading hand they needed. Out here, she was like the big sister she always wished she had. And like a good big sister, good friend, good captain, she had picked up on her situation.</p><p> </p><p>So, Maya explained to her the indecisiveness she had been left to feel about the next year. The taller girl listened attentively, letting her finish before saying anything in return.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, Maya… No one’s going to know what you should do… except you. And you <em>will</em> know. I saw you out there today, and I saw exactly what I see at every game. You know what needs to happen when it needs to happen. The answer will come for this, too. You just have to wait it out.” It was all she needed to hear. And Riya was right, she felt it.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” she spoke simply.</p><p> </p><p>“Now come on, let’s go back and see what the rest of them are up to. I smell a rematch.” Maya followed her, but even as she did so, and maybe for having seen Julianne Shelby’s brother in some of the pictures, she had a thought.</p><p> </p><p>“Forget that. I have a better idea.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0348"><h2>348. Their State of Team Building</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The boys’ basketball team this year had very little in the way of returning players. Nathan Shelby was the only senior, Étienne St-Pierre and Tommy Marlowe the only juniors, and while they had three sophomores, Ray Choi, Rene Garcia – no relation to Asher and Joey – and Stevie Radcliffe, none of them had been of the previous year’s team. This was of course also the case of the six freshmen, with Blake Wilczewski and Kenji Yamada joining Lucas, Zay, Asher, and Dylan. At least these last two had been part of their 8<sup>th</sup> grade team, so that six of their twelve had known each other well enough, and before long, the various chunks had come to meld well together.</p><p> </p><p>Now, with only Nathan about to leave them, it could very well be that the next year’s team would be near identical to this one. Lucas could be very okay with that. These guys and he had made a great team over this past year, and if they could carry on, well… On top of that, while they were losing one Shelby, they were very likely to gain current 8<sup>th</sup> grader Scott Shelby in the fall.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas knew Maya, Nadine, and Riley were off at the Shelby house now, playing/practicing with the girls’ team, which worked out well enough, as he and the boys were doing the same, at the park.</p><p> </p><p>In their case, the teams were set by Nathan, their captain, and like he’d often do, he had put the freshmen on one end, and the rest on the other. The challenge was there for both ends. Sure, Nathan’s team was older, most of them more experienced. But the six freshmen had been a team longer than the others, and that held its own benefits.</p><p> </p><p>They started off with Blake and Rene sitting out on either side. Things started out well enough for Team Freshman, the five out at play showing just what made them something together. But somewhere around the middle, things had started to shift, and after that they had never shifted back.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas felt in a way like it might have been his fault. He had gotten distracted for a beat. He’d been so into the game, and then a thought had entered his mind that forced him off balance. He thought about Maya, and her indecision. He knew, he felt, it would work itself out in the end, but they weren’t there yet, and for now it was still up in the air.</p><p> </p><p>For one wild moment, he had told himself that, if she decided that she had to quit basketball, then he would do the same. It was silly, and he knew she would never let him go through with it, but for the moment he legitimately considered it, and it somehow made him feel better… made him feel like he could help.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t do anything about it. She would be the one making the decision, but he especially couldn’t press on the issue right now. He would give her a great ‘midversary;’ she deserved it, and he wanted to give that to her.</p><p> </p><p>The game had ended with the great deception of the freshmen. When the others asked what had come over them, all of them did little more than shrug, as though to say ‘I don’t know,’ when of course they’d know… but they’d never sell another one of them out. Normally, Lucas might have owned up to it for himself, but it might have meant airing out Maya’s thing, and he didn’t think he was meant to.</p><p> </p><p>This would just be one game. And if it came to be that she chose not to join the team next year, he knew that he would only redouble his own efforts. She would still be in the stands, and he planned on giving her a great show.</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t believe you didn’t figure it out yet, man,” Ray Choi chuckled at him as they sat around post game. Lucas frowned, unsure what he meant. “The puppies? The names?”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, you know?” Lucas sat up.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure. Pieced it together the other day. And no, I’m not telling you what it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“I-I didn’t say I’d ask,” Lucas defended himself, as though anyone would believe that.</p><p> </p><p>“Trust me, you’re going to kick yourself later,” Ray laughed, moving to go and chat with Asher now. Lucas frowned to himself, staring at his water bottle. If Ray had figured it out, now he really needed to. Had anyone else figured it out?</p><p> </p><p>“Ghost… Queen… Tuck…” he muttered under his breath slowly, as though the answer would jump out at him. Instead, what jumped out at him – and nearly clipped him in the nose – was a basketball. When he looked up, and as the rest of the boys did, what he saw was a group of girls marching out through the park and toward them. Front and center among them was Maya, blond ponytail high and swinging.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you guys doing here?” Nathan Shelby asked, and his equivalent on the other side replied.</p><p> </p><p>“What does it look like?” Riya shrugged, indicating the rest of the team. “It’s a challenge. Girls versus boys, what do you say? Winner gets to pick the punishment. Nothing crazy, we all have games and finals, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0349"><h2>349. Their State of Team Spirit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A huddle on each side had decided who would play for each team. For the guys, it would be Lucas, Dylan, Blake, Ray, and Nathan, while for the girls it would be Maya, Nadine, Julianne, Riya, and Melanie. Now with that decided, it would be a moment more before they started, and Lucas took this chance to go and see what his girlfriend had to say.</p><p> </p><p>“It was my idea,” she revealed with a proud little grin. “That’s as close to real stakes as we can get, right? Split a team in half and we’re still a team. Now here, both sides want to win as much as either of us would if we were going up against another team.” When she put it like that, he could kind of see how that would work, too. “We’ve never really played like that against each other, have we?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, not really,” he agreed, then, with a smile, “Want to team up?” She tipped her head as she raised her shoulders at the same time.</p><p> </p><p>“On anything else, in a heartbeat,” she vowed. “On this, I’ll be branded a traitor… and around here I haven’t figured out yet if that would be an actual branding,” she mimed.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, you’ve been here almost three years now, at some point you’re gonna have to stop with the Texas jokes. You’re one of us now, Maya Hart.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I know,” she laughed. “I make jokes about New York, too, that’s just how I do things.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right,” Lucas nodded. “So, no trading over. Guess that means we’ll have to beat you,” he shrugged, and she squinted at him.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s cute you think you’re going to beat us. Good luck, Friar,” she held out her hand. He took it, shook it, but in the next beat leaned in and kissed her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, fraternizing,” Riya and Nathan both called at once, like <em>they</em> had much ground to stand on with that one.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, shoo, we’re enemies now. Prepare for defeat and all that. Good luck!” Maya nudged Lucas back to his team before turning to her own. Her estimation had soon proven very right. None of their informal games within their teams had ever felt so real as this. They all wanted to win. It might have become something of a tradition in years to come.</p><p> </p><p>There were a few times where the lead slipped from one side to the other and back, so much so that it was far from a sure thing, down to the last minutes. Maya’s last scoring had taken until Riley shouted ‘time’ to be revealed as the winning shot, and her teammates didn’t forget it, congratulating her as much as they did one another. And as the girls proclaimed this victory against them, the boys looked less disappointed by the loss and more so by whatever retribution the girls would turn on them. The girls announced that they wouldn’t tell them what that would be, not until the time came.</p><p> </p><p>Maya looked around at the others all around her. The two teams may have been adversaries in some point, like here, but they were also united under the name of their school, and they would support one another as fiercely as they had played against each other today. It was this little world she might have loved above all other things about being on this team.</p><p> </p><p>Could she ever have imagined herself where she was now when she’d come here? A top student, a top player… But she’d done it. Next year looked impossible, but so had a lot of things that were far from that now. So maybe she <em>would</em> be just fine, or… or maybe this would be the one that broke the rule.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Hart, come on!” Rachel called out to her. “Victors,” she indicated the rest of the team. Maya rejoined them, soon to have arms slung over her shoulders from both sides as they walked off, twelve players and their honorary/lucky 13<sup>th</sup>.</p><p> </p><p>She had never regretted joining this year, or the year before. She had discovered something that she genuinely loved, so much so that she couldn’t imagine stopping, not now… She could find a way, couldn’t she? Oh, she had to… she wanted to, needed to…</p><p> </p><p>The girls’ team left the park hollering at the top of their lungs as they went, like warriors marching home.</p><p> </p><p>When Maya arrived home later that afternoon, she plopped down on her bed, exhausted but contented. Her hand was stuck over her heart, hearing its cheerful rhythm. ‘Fight,’ it said, ‘fight for what matters to you.’ That was what she’d done before, wasn’t it? She couldn’t stop now. She’d have a summer to figure it out, not to decide but to organize herself. If she could do that, then the rest would come together. She truly believed it.</p><p> </p><p>She texted Lucas, telling him of the choice she’d made in the end. To no surprise, he showed himself instantly on board with it, with her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0350"><h2>350. Their State of Couple Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning of May 11<sup>th</sup> came around, and it was in a lot of ways exactly as she had done six months before, waking up to the knowledge that she was going out with Lucas that night. Sure, things hadn’t turned out… <em>quite</em> how they would have liked, but she still remembered it, and now it all felt like something to smile about. She wouldn’t change one thing about it. They were here now, weren’t they? They were here, and stronger than ever.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, it was Thursday, and unlike their first date, on a Friday, they had decided to push it off to the next day, especially considering their plans. Already this whole time since the 1<sup>st</sup> of May had been like a run up to the day, so it couldn’t be any better. And today wasn’t going to be ignored either.</p><p> </p><p>He showed up on her doorstep as he did every morning before school, only he did so, apparently, transposing ‘doorstep’ to ‘bay window.’ She’d been ready to go already, up so early for being anxious for the day, and she’d been sitting there, reading for English class, when she heard a light tap at the window.</p><p> </p><p>“I have a door, you know,” she said after pulling it open. “And two parents, one of which would probably just <em>love</em> to go all Dad on this… intrusion, hi,” she smiled, kissing him after he’d climbed through and sat next to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Happy Midversary,” he whispered. “You look amazing…”</p><p> </p><p>Her smile brightened, looking down to herself. Of course, the two of them had a habit of ‘going formal’ at school when the occasion called for it, and this was one of those days. She had her dress, he had his tie…</p><p> </p><p>“You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself,” she whispered back. “Now get to the door, before someone tries to strangle you with that tie.” He considered this for a second, kissed her again and hurried back through the window, nearly wiping out when he clipped his head on the frame. Maya gasped as he scrambled on to balance and turned around. She cringed, pointing to her forehead and then to his. “Get to the door, go, go.” She watched him march off, then hurried out of her room and to the door.</p><p> </p><p>In no time, Lucas was sitting at the kitchen table while Katy Hart cleaned the small cut he’d gained ‘running into a tree,’ and stuck a band aid on it. Maya was about sure neither of her parents believed this tale, but they said nothing, so maybe they figured the head bump was good enough. It had earned them a ride to Riley’s and then to school. So, all in all, their anniversaries, and midversaries, were looking to be marked for incidents and unexpected memorable moments.</p><p> </p><p>After making it through Thursday and Friday at school, they had gone their separate ways to get ready before Lucas could come and pick her up with the car. This time around, she waited for him outside, as he needed to keep that head of his away from her window. He pulled up, and she stood to go and meet him. He, of course, climbed out and came around to open the door for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Shouldn’t I be doing that? <em>You’re</em> the injured one,” she pointed out as they both sat in the car. He shook his head, tried and failed to hide a wince. “Still stings, huh?” she asked, reaching out her hands to either side of his head before leaning to press a careful kiss over the band aid. It wasn’t the same one as the morning of the day before. When he’d gotten home and his mother had seen, she’d insisted on making sure he didn’t need stitches or a brain scan, much as he’d insist that he was fine, which he was. “Did that help?” Maya asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Didn’t hurt,” he smiled up at her.</p><p> </p><p>They drove off toward the ‘theater.’ Maya was eternally amused at the sight of Lucas the driver. He was so serious behind that wheel, he wouldn’t have music on for fear of it distracting him. The temptation was right there to do anything distracting, but of course she wouldn’t, not in a moving car. So instead they just talked about basketball, and the impending end to the season. The two teams still talked about the face off in the park, and how they couldn’t wait for a rematch. The boys were also anxious to know just what kind of punishment the girls would put on them for their loss. Maya only smirked and shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>They arrived at the drive-in, in little to no time being settled into their viewing spot, with dinner from the food stands. They still had a little while to go before the movie, so they sat facing each other as they ate their burgers.</p><p> </p><p>“I figured it out, you know?” Lucas informed her. Off her puzzled look, he smiled. “The dogs, their names.”</p><p> </p><p>“Did you now,” she gave him another look. “Alright, tell me,” she challenged.</p><p> </p><p>“Ray told me I was going to kick myself when I found it. That’s because I was the key, wasn’t I? Tuck, like <em>Friar</em> Tuck, in Robin Hood?” She said nothing, but the look on her face said ‘Maybe, go on.’ “So, then I thought maybe there was a pattern, like… Queen of <em>Hearts</em>… or Hart, anyway, and then a Ghost <em>Hunter</em>,” he counted off on his fingers before waiting to see if he’d gotten it.</p><p> </p><p>“If I’d gotten a fourth one I’d have called it Honey or something, can’t really do anything with ‘Matthews,’ can you?” she chuckled before giving him a nod. “Well done, Huckleberry. I present you with… well, I have nothing, so here’s a fry,” she held it out to him. “I was saving it for the end because it’s super long and all, but you earned it. Come on, take it,” she insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“I will cherish it forever,” he replied.</p><p> </p><p>“Nah, you have to eat it or it’ll go bad.” There was no arguing that, so he ate the long fry. This somehow diverged into a ‘defense’ of her liking cold French fries, for which she argued “well you eat potato salad, what do you think’s in there?”</p><p> </p><p>They had finished eating by the time the movie started, and she was so excited about being there that he could only smile and put his arm around her until she came to lean her head to his shoulder. Sitting here with her, it was only one in a lengthening count of their resting at ease this way, but it never got old at all, did it? Both of them were right where they wanted to be.</p><p> </p><p>The movie came to an end, neither of them having moved from their position, though she had spent the majority of it with her hand pressed over his heart, while his own had been running softly along her arm, or her back, or her hair… As the credits rolled, she had turned her head up to look at him and he’d looked down to meet her gaze.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” he spoke quietly, as she stretched just enough to press her lips to his. He returned the kiss, in the same relaxed way they’d been sitting together, though as she came nearer, and the kiss carried on, he briefly forgot they’d even been watching a movie. He was just somewhere else, him and her, and he never wanted to leave.</p><p> </p><p>The return to reality, and eventually the drive home, was brought upon them when their heads had bumped together, and the cut on his forehead had startled him.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry! Sorry!” she’d laughed, carefully touching the band aid to see that all was well. He looked back at her, this amazing girl he had the privilege to call his girlfriend, and the pain seemed to grow very distant.</p><p> </p><p>He drove her home, opened her door again, and walked her to the house. She sent him off before either of her parents could come along, and so he went on his way. He waited until she was inside the house and then he drove off. Half a year… it’d be a year before they knew it, wouldn’t it… Well, he was okay with that.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0351"><h2>351. Their Anticipation For a Party</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Shelby house was taken over by twenty-four basketball players – and one beastie – one June evening, as the two teams celebrated a successful end to their respective seasons, and the graduation, impending as it was, for the seniors among them. If there was ever an occasion to celebrate with a party, that had to be it, right? As the new additions of the year would come to know, this was a tradition they would uphold yearly, regardless of the results. Last year’s party, as they were told, had been a particularly ‘lively’ event, both teams celebrating come-from-behind wins, as well as seeing off a great load of their graduating players. Julianne Shelby had already shown them the still visible marks of that party in her basement; they were going to keep the guests outdoors this time.</p><p> </p><p>It had been on their hostess’ word that Riley had been allowed to attend. The party was reserved to the players, and any of them with dates that night only achieved this for having another player as their boyfriend or girlfriend. But as Julianne had told her brother Nathan, so that he would inform the guys, Riley Matthews was a member of the girls’ team as much as any of them were, and if she couldn’t come, then none of them would. So that settled the matter. Maya and Nadine still chuckled, remembering how fiercely Riley had hugged Julianne when she’d heard this.</p><p> </p><p>“So how many couples does that make?” Lucas asked, as he walked up to the house with Maya after parking the car.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, there’s Zay and Nadine,” she counted off, “And Riya and Nathan. Sofia and Blake are still on the outs but I’m betting that’s resolved by the end of tonight, and then… I’m missing one, if I can just remember…” she tapped her chin with her index. He raised his hand. “That’s it, that’s the one,” she teased. “So, three to four… of course it’s a party, and all of us, so… who knows?” she stated, with mischief and conspiracy. She could think of a pairing or two just waiting to happen… It was up to them.</p><p> </p><p>“You think?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Riya said last year’s party was where she and Nathan started,” Maya nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey!” a voice called to them and they stopped and turned to find Asher sprinting toward them.</p><p> </p><p>“Starboy!” Maya greeted him, hooking her free arm with his. “Was just, uh… was just thinking about you…” He gave a weak cringe at the nickname, but there was no escaping it with how he’d won things for the boys’ team at the last game. It had come to the point where poor Joey had started going around with a shirt that said ‘We’re twins, I’m not him’ to evade anyone’s coming up to him trying to hoist him off the ground or giving a playful smack to the arm that felt like a bruise waiting to happen according to him. “So, Starboy, are you ready to party?” she sang out, breaking into a laugh just as quick.</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like <em>you</em> are,” Asher told her, unable to keep from smiling back. “Didn’t Riley come with you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, she’s already out there,” Maya informed him. “She offered herself to help them set things up, since they were nice enough to bend the rules for her.”</p><p> </p><p>As they neared the house, they could already hear music coming from the yard, and they saw a cluster of their teammates standing and sitting out front, locked in what they could tell from where they stood as a recounting of their respective final games. Zay, Nadine, and Dylan were already there among them.</p><p> </p><p>“Why are we all here, I thought the party was out there?” Lucas asked, pointing to the back of the house.</p><p> </p><p>“Apparently we all showed up too early and they’re not ready,” Nadine reported in a voice that suggested she had already told this a few times. “Come on, sit,” she tapped the steps next to her, and the three new arrivals came and sat. “I’ve been floating the idea that we threaten to just stay here if they don’t let us through in the next five minutes.”</p><p> </p><p>“I have a better idea,” Maya stood back up and marched off to round the house and stand at the closed gate leading to the yard. “Riley!” she called, raising her hand so it would be visible over the top. She remained this way until, ten seconds later, another hand reached from the other side and grasped hers. She smiled to herself, pulling her hand back down, looking at the ring on her finger, given – in a matching set – by Riley on her birthday, the first one they’d spent in the same city since she’d moved to Austin. It had power, and it said ‘let me in.’ The gate opened a crack. “Party?”</p><p> </p><p>“Five minutes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nadine’s going to pull mutiny if that happens.” Riley hesitated, looked back, then held up four fingers. “I can work with that.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0352"><h2>352. Their Anticipation For Finals</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Four minutes later, the guests descended upon the Shelby yard in mass. The last of those minutes had been spent with the lot of them stood at the closed gate, singing loudly to the music coming from inside, before the gate was opened and they passed through with a cheer.</p><p> </p><p>Now they had dispersed across the yard, some sitting, talking, some dancing, or sampling the food at their disposal. Some had picked up the ball and started taking shots at the hoop. The rest were in or around the pool, which was the case with Maya and Lucas, who were sitting at the edge, with their feet in the water.</p><p> </p><p>“Good thing we finally got in, you know Nadine can look scary when she’s determined. I’ve only seen <em>that</em> look on her when we’d be in the last minutes of a tie game… or sitting in class with a big test.”</p><p> </p><p>“Speaking of big tests, you’re not going to freak out about finals too much, are you? I mean, if you do, I’ll need to stretch my, uh… girlfriend calming skills,” he tapped her at the shoulder. She matched his look with a twist of amusement and curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>“Skills? There are skills?” she asked, tipping her chin over her hand, looking at him in wait. “Is there a lasso involved?” she moved now to mime winding a lasso up.</p><p> </p><p>“Not for finals, no, that’s for something else,” he replied, making her laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“I think you’ll be off the hook, this time around,” she eventually told him, and the calm really was in her this time around. “I actually feel… ready… and that still feels <em>so</em> weird to me. Anyway, it won’t stay that way, will it? Next year, I’ll have advanced classes, advanced tests, and finals…” she sighed.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t be like that,” he assured her, taking her hand in his. “You’ve been getting better and better, look at what you just said, you’re not worried about these finals, and that’s new, so why can’t <em>that</em> be the same?”</p><p> </p><p>“I like that optimism, kid, never lose that,” she beamed at him, and the smirk he gave in reply translated easily enough: <em>look, I told you I could do it.</em> “Damn, look at that… Skills… I’m impressed, well done. Now I’m thinking maybe you need a challenge, like a real hair puller of a scene, you know? Then we’ll see how good you really are.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that really a good idea? Here, now?” he asked, as she kept on nodding at him. He shook his head, she kept on nodding. “I have a better one,” he declared, a moment before looping his arms around her and tipping them both into the pool, unleashing a squeal out of her before they sank underwater. He didn’t let her go, not wanting the surprise to get her in trouble. For a beat he could see her, a halo of blond floating about her head, before they resurfaced, finding the leap had gotten a laugh out of their teammates.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, so that’s how it is,” she breathed, blinking water out of her eyes, pushing hair from her face. “That whole calming thing, that was just a trick then?”</p><p> </p><p>“No tricks, not on you, he vowed.</p><p> </p><p>“Right, sure,” she kept him fixed with a suspicious smile. “Hang on.” Pulling herself up the side of the pool, dress shedding a torrent of water back where it belonged, she pulled the dress over her head, revealing her swim suit, and went to lay it out to dry before dashing back to jump into the water where Lucas waited. Realizing that might have been best, he pulled his shirt, wringing out the water before tossing it in a heap to a dry spot. “Now, now, what would your mother say?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s not here, she won’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, no, of course not,” she shook her head, moving off through the water, willing to bet he’d looked back at that shirt for a moment before following her. “So how about you?” Maya asked, as they floated around, facing each other. “How are you feeling about <em>finals</em>?” she asked, putting on a ‘spooky’ tone.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine,” he shrugged, then, “Mostly. But it’s not time yet, I’ve still got time to study. You and me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Always,” she smiled. Who would have thought she would ever be someone that anyone looked to as having any scholarly abilities to share? It still felt as surprising as it was thrilling, though she would never say it aloud. Still, she could have fun with it, sometimes, as she did now, swimming up to put her arms around his neck, insisting she would make sure that it all went well, like he’d been the one in need of ‘calming skills.’ When he called her on this, she gave a shrug, declaring she had learned it from the best, before closing in with a kiss.</p><p> </p><p>Their swimming time was cut short not long after when Lucas spotted the Shelby dog running off with a distinctive shirt caught in his teeth. He hurried out of the water, running after the dog while Maya just chuckled, moving up to the water’s edge to watch the wild chase. It was a whole minute before she saw him come back toward her, his rescued shirt in hand and looking more or less intact. It was now laid out with her dress, and he returned to sit with his feet in the water as they’d been before. She remained where she was, propping up her arms on the edge of the pool and looking up at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Should have gone for the shirt, huh?” she couldn’t help but ask.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0353"><h2>353. Their Anticipation For a Vacation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you know when you guys are leaving on vacation yet?” he asked her after she’d come out of the pool and sat next to him, knees pulled up, toes wiggling.</p><p> </p><p>“July 10<sup>th</sup>,” she nodded. It had just been confirmed that morning, after a bit of a long debate. “Back right before the month’s up. Three weeks…”</p><p> </p><p>Oh, she was excited, absolutely. She and her parents were going on vacation. If that wasn’t cause for excitement, then what was? Shawn had promised her they would go somewhere, and she knew she could trust that, but even so, when he and her mother had revealed their plans, she’d been floored. Three whole weeks, each one spent in a different place. The first week in Greece, the second in Italy, the third in France. Even now, there were times where she had to remind herself it wasn’t a dream. It was really happening, and now, oh… she would count down the days.</p><p> </p><p>She <em>was</em> excited, truly. She had never had anything like this, even less the belief that she ever would have the chance of it, but she did now, she really did. The one thing that left her with a bit of a sigh was that it would mean having to leave all her friends for almost a month. How many times over the years had it been the other way around, where Riley or Farkle would be gone, visiting family out of New York, or off at some camp or another, or to some destination or another, and she was left at home to miss them? Now she was the one leaving, and she discovered the other side of that. Even when one of her friends had been gone, she’d had the other… Here, the summer, the year where she’d lived away from her friends in New York, well she had her Austin friends. Now it would be just her… No, no… It’d be her and her parents, and that was a good thing, so why did she dread being away from them so much? She’d be back after three weeks, it wasn’t permanent or anything. She guessed some part of her still carried something of that fear from the month of the misunderstanding…</p><p> </p><p>“I’m hungry,” Maya announced, standing up. “You?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he followed her at once and they went to the table, where it looked as though many of their teammates had already made some work of relieving bowls and platters of their offerings. A few empty pizza boxes were stacked under the table, a few others still on the table though halfway emptied, too. Loading up a couple of plates, they moved to sit somewhere on their own. “You’re going to write, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, the post offices better look out when I’m over there,” she vowed. It would keep her busy, for sure. She had promised postcards to all of them, so much that she had started to consider printing labels she could peel and stick instead of copying the names and destinations down every time. “Are we thinking postcards or long, dramatic love letters?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Dramatic?” he laughed, and she set down her plate by her side, taking hold of his arm.</p><p> </p><p>“Dear Boyfriend Guy, it has been three <em>whole</em> days since I have seen your face, and my heart, my <em>heart</em>, it aches to see you again, to hear your voice, to hold those strong hands…” she gasped, tugging at his arm as she spoke, sounding as though she might be on the verge of tears if she didn’t also sound like she really had to hold back a laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, you made it three days?” he smiled, as he’d done from the start of her ‘letter.’</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, just barely,” she ‘sniffed’ before picking her plate back up and biting into her slice of pizza.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything you write, I’ll wait for it,” he told her. He would write her, too, if he could, but what were the odds he could mail out a letter and guarantee it would reach her before she’d moved on to another country? Although this did give him an idea. Just because he couldn’t send his replies to where she’d be when she was gone, it didn’t mean he couldn’t mail her letters to where he knew she’d be, sooner or later. Imagine her face when she’d come home to find her mailbox stacked with letters… he could even send her postcards… from Austin to Austin… It could be weird, but <em>she</em> would get it.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that look?” she asked, pointing to his face. “What are you thinking?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just how happy I’ll be to see you again when you come back. If that’s not something to look forward to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it will be,” she agreed. She could just see herself, spotting him at the airport, him and their friends, ready to welcome her back… that <em>would</em> be worth waiting for. Not that she would spend those three weeks sitting around, waiting to go home. But at least now she had this little thought to fill her with ease, to allow herself to enjoy that vacation with a little less of a burdened mind. “You better have a sign,” she joked.</p><p> </p><p>“Already on it,” he replied, not at all joking. “Dylan wants it to be big enough so you’ll see it from the plane.” She laughed, looking across the yard, to where their friend sat with Asher and Ray Choi, they could tell, from having seen those arm movements a few times, recounting highlights from the boys’ final game.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0354"><h2>354. Their Anticipation For Visitors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The single hitch in all this, much as she’d known it would be one for as long as she’d known they would go on this trip, was the Farkle and Smackle of it all. She knew that her being away would clash with their coming. And <em>those</em> dates had been fixed before today, so she knew she would miss their arrival and near on half of their time in Austin.</p><p> </p><p>She guessed she should just have been glad for their coming at all, and her getting to spend the weeks with them that she would get. Two summers in a row, that wasn’t something for her to toss aside, was it?</p><p> </p><p>Farkle’s impending arrival was as it had always been envisioned, as far as Lucas and his family were concerned. He only had one real task to see to between now and then, and it was to get Dash to accept her new sleeping arrangement. She was so at ease in the opposite bed, where she’d slept for as long as she’d been at the Friar house, and every time he’d tried to settle her on her new little bed, she’d ended up back on the spare bed, Farkle’s bed, in the moments after he’d turned his back. What would happen if he couldn’t acclimate her to it in time? He could just imagine her parking herself atop his summer roommate like he was a new, moving cushion sitting on <em>her</em> bed. He didn’t want to have to lock her out of the room, that’d just be mean. He had a few more weeks to get her there…</p><p> </p><p>Maya, for her part, had a bit more of a different thing to look forward to. As they’d figured would have to happen, Smackle would be rooming at the Matthews house this summer, and she wouldn’t be alone. Riley and her family were to be put in charge of Ghost, Queen, and Tuck while Maya and her parents were away. It could turn into a bit of a situation, she knew, to present someone like Auggie Matthews with three puppies for three weeks and then taking them away from him, but Riley had asked, and Mr. &amp; Mrs. Matthews had said it would be fine, so what else was she going to do?</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe we can ask them to push their dates a couple of weeks?” Maya suggested casually as she dug into the rest of her plate. “It’d be easier on everyone.”</p><p> </p><p>“Would it? What if they <em>can’t</em> change it? I think Farkle’s supposed to go to some camp when he and Smackle get back,” he told her, and she breathed out, remembering.</p><p> </p><p>“He is. Yeah.” So that was that. No change to the plans. Well, they <em>did</em> have plans, didn’t they? “Oh, but what about… Christmas in July, we said… I won’t be back on the 25<sup>th</sup>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, it’ll be July, August, not December, so it’s no big deal if we have it another day, will it?”</p><p> </p><p>“It might… a little… to me,” she gave mock disappointment.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll have it when you get back. I know I’ll be in a ‘jolly’ mood. And <em>you</em> will be, and so will everyone else. What <em>other</em> time would we have our holiday?”</p><p> </p><p>That was why they’d decided to have it, wasn’t it? So that they could do Christmas, all of them together? So, yeah, what did it matter when they had it, so long as they were all there?</p><p> </p><p>“You know what?” Maya scooted over so they could be shoulder to shoulder, “I don’t think I <em>will</em> make it three days before I start writing ‘soppy mess’ letters,” she declared, leaning her chin to his shoulder. “Probably won’t even make it off the ground at the airport.”</p><p> </p><p>“That bad?” he looked down at her.</p><p> </p><p>“That good… Good Huckleberry,” she smiled, <em>his</em> smile, the one that was for him. He hardly had to move to press his lips to her forehead, though his hand had blindly found its way to hers and held on to it tightly. They couldn’t pretend like this wasn’t feeling even a tiny bit painful to them, three weeks, it could be three months, three years, in this moment in their lives. They’d tried not to let themselves get down into that mindset, but it was too late.</p><p> </p><p>“Geez, who died?” They looked up to find Nathan Shelby stood there, with Riya Chari just behind him. The two team captains peered down to their somber-looking players like they’d been giving off alarms from clear across the yard.</p><p> </p><p>“Get up, come on, come dance with us,” Riya nodded back to where the great majority of the others had sort of merged from all around, into a single dancing heap. No wonder the two of them had stood out enough for Nathan and Riya to want to intervene. “Come on,” the girls’ captain pulled the pair up by their joined hands, laughing.</p><p> </p><p>Neither of them resisted. Soon they were absorbed by their teammates, until it felt like their collective joyfulness could do nothing else but shake the new pair out of their gloom. It returned them to the knowledge that, here and now, they were together, that vacations had a beginning and an end. And when that end came, there they would be, as they were now.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey… Asher’s not dancing?” Lucas noticed their friend, stood not far out of the circle, watching, not dancing. Maya looked at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Not everyone has to,” she told Lucas. “Sometimes it’s not the time.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0355"><h2>355. Their Anticipation For Summer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world around them had a way of shrinking down to the space of the yard, as the two teams danced around in a loose sort of mass, carried with music and friends. Nothing to worry or think about, not here or now. Before long, the stragglers had joined in, even Asher, when Dylan and Riley had gone and pulled their past dance partner in from the sidelines.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas didn’t know how he could ever be unhappy, seeing the expression on his girlfriend’s face as she danced. It made her so happy, being here, and he could see why. It was hard to be upset, dancing around like this. Lucas couldn’t even feel that little inner sadness they’d been feeling not long ago, not in that moment. Instead, he was thinking about everything else.</p><p> </p><p>He was thinking about the things they did every summer, of course, the things they would always do, vacation or not. Camping with Pappy Joe, the Babineaux family party, movie nights, sleepovers, basketball… Those things were the things that made summer Summer, made it theirs. There may well come a day when that would no longer be the case, but if that ever happened, well… There would be new things, wouldn’t there…</p><p> </p><p>He was also thinking about everything else, the things that made every summer stand out from the previous or the next. Two summers ago, Maya had been new to their group still, and her coming into it all had changed so much. Last summer, they’d had Riley, too, and for six glorious weeks, they’d had Farkle and Smackle over for the first time. This summer… this summer would be the one where Maya was away for three weeks, sure, but it would also be their first as a couple, and that would be something on its own. They could benefit from not being restrained by the need to count in school nights when they wanted to go out. It brought him back to the night of the covert date and he chuckled, recalling how Maya had told him what had happened with Mrs. Matthews when she’d gone back into the house.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s so funny there?” Maya asked when she saw this.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing,” he shrugged, though he still smiled.</p><p> </p><p>Maya could hardly say a word on this, figuring he was just happy to be there; she couldn’t argue with that. She couldn’t imagine wanting anything but this as they all danced among their friends. It reminded her of so many wonderful little things, and big ones, too, that she had gained in living in Austin with all of them. She would have found it difficult to slot herself back into her old New York life, but somewhere along the way that had just stopped being an issue.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, she was looking forward to her third summer in this place she now called home with as much passion as she had ever called her old home. She had a lot of things she never would have dared to hope for, and while she would never forget those days, she didn’t drag them on like a weight either.</p><p> </p><p>She thought about summer, with her family, her friends, her boyfriend, and with a trio of pups. It would all be so different from the year before, just as that one had been so different from two summers ago, like <em>that</em> one had been from three summers ago, and so on… Summer always felt like that bridge, that moment to realize how far she’d come, and to wonder where the road would take her next.</p><p> </p><p>In time the dancing group of twenty-five had started to shrink away, some moving to get something to eat, others returning to the pool, or to the hoops.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you want to do?” Lucas asked Maya as they watched Zay and Nadine head to the food tables, while Riley, Dylan, and Asher went for the pool. She replied by putting her arms around his neck: she wanted to keep on dancing. “As you wish,” he tipped his head, and they went on dancing, the world shrinking once more to the space of that ‘dance floor.’ They could be the last two left and they wouldn’t notice.</p><p> </p><p>When they did stop, they went off together, finding their way to the hoops, where they sat and watched Ray, Étienne, Tasha, and Melanie, who were in the midst of a shoot off, as some others did, too.</p><p> </p><p>“So, I told my mother where you were going this summer, now she wants to tell you about her trip back in college when she went to all those countries. She says she has all these travel guides she could lend you,” he told her, like he expected her not to want them, but instead she said she would happily take them. “They look brand new, because it’s her, but they’re from the nineties, they’re older than us.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s alright, I can see how much things have changed,” she pointed out. “Now am I allowed to bring those with me, or do I need to… consult them at your house?” she teased, though his face said it all; she was probably better off just looking at them here, not pack them in her suitcase. “Fair enough,” she smiled before looking to the four stood not far ahead. “Hey, can I get in on that?” she called to the girls from her team.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, come on,” Melanie tossed her the ball as she stood.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, wait, now if you get one more, then so do we,” Ray pointed out. “Lucas, come on.”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0356"><h2>356. Their Anticipation For Competition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three on three, it had started to be that the people watching from the sidelines were now as numerous as they were devoted to rooting for their teammates, which was to say they were all in. And soon it became that they went from three to four, and five, seven, ten, and eventually twelve on twelve, the two teams ganged up, leaving Riley as their impartial judge in between.</p><p> </p><p>None of them would forget – or allow anyone <em>to</em> forget – how it had all ended up with the game they’d held at the park, and the girls’ victory, the boys’ loss and the consequence of that loss. The girls had not collected on this, not until they had the what and the when. Well, that moment had finally come, in the aftermath of the girls’ final game, final win of the season, which preceded the boys’ by two days. They knew the way of things in their school, knew that as respected as they could be, they would be eclipsed when the boys had their final.</p><p> </p><p>So, the prize they called in was simple: they wanted to make sure their achievements would get their proper show. The boys had done plenty to ensure the girls’ wish would be granted. They could have gone the way of humiliation with them and instead they had chosen this, and for that their friendly rivalry had come to new strength. Of course, that didn’t prevent the girls from reminding the boys that they’d crushed them. Now, with all of them there in the Shelby yard, the competition was back on.</p><p> </p><p>“What does the winning team get this time?” Nathan asked the others. “Year’s out, not all of us are coming back, this is kind of it.” The players were quiet for a moment at that, looking at everyone stood around them. “Prize gets collected tonight, deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“No bringing the house down!” Julianne Shelby added to her brother’s offer, as the others had cheered.</p><p> </p><p>“Maya, come on,” Nadine pulled at her arm so they might go and huddle up with their team, figuring out a strategy. She would sneak a look to see what was happening on the boys’ side at the same time, as the others did the same. Both teams had their strengths, their weaknesses, too, and both teams had seen one another play too many times not to have them in mind. Of course, this was about more than a game, or less… All that mattered was the ball and the hoop.</p><p> </p><p>Nathan’s words were still in her head, and she had a feeling it was in the others’ too, this idea that these teams as they’d existed would cease to be when this party was over. Next year, there would be a part that was the same, and a part that wasn’t, so then it would just not be the same again. Looking around, she would remember how nervous she had been in the beginning. She also remembered how quickly she’d been left to find she had nothing to worry about. These girls had become friends, a sort of family all on its own. Now some of these new sisters would be departing. Would they remain a part of her life or would they drift away?</p><p> </p><p>This wasn’t going to be sad, no. If this was to be that year’s team’s send off, then they would make it a damned good one. Looking around the circle of girls, she saw it all in their eyes, she knew: they were thinking the same thing. Maya had decided something else then: they were going to win.</p><p> </p><p>It would not be said that either side didn’t put in some attempt to distract or throw off the other, but then maybe they only did so with the knowledge that it would not work. There was a reason they’d both won, wasn’t there? They were very good that way.</p><p> </p><p>They had started off back from zero, discounting the points from when it had been two on two, and three on three. Bit by bit, the count had come along, kept by Riley on a notepad she’d been given by Julianne. If they ever wanted to know the score, they didn’t have to worry; their scorekeeper would call it loudly at every update. She may have had a noticeable bias to the girls seen in her tone when one team or the other would score, but there was no denying she was accurate. The two sides both saw some points, climbing at a relatively even pace, but once the girls had distanced themselves by three points ahead, they had never relinquished that advance, and the score announcements only grew more raucous by the minute.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, it had come down to Maya, Riya, and Nadine on the girls’ side, and Nathan, Ray, and Dylan on the boys’, even though there was no touching the girls’ advance by then, unless they intended to keep going much longer than they were willing to drag it out. By the time it was only Maya and Ray, the two looked to each other, Ray set the ball on the ground, and that was that. The girls had the night, fair and square.</p><p> </p><p>And now, once again, it was up to them to put some punishment on to the boys. The last time hadn’t been much as punishments went, and this time could have been, but the girls saw no point in this. As the one who’d been last standing for them, Maya had been elected to walk up to address the boys and inform them of their ‘loss challenge.’</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, fellas, there are no losers here, just people who weren’t as good,” she smirked. “Now that was some tiring business, and we want to sit, and enjoy ourselves, so I guess that makes you boys the entertainment…”</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0357"><h2>357. Their Anticipation For All</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucas drove Maya home from the Shelby house when the party was over, and he was sure they could be heard talking and laughing the whole way, recalling one thing or another from the night. The top story couldn’t have been anything but the boys’ show after they’d been defeated by the girls. While the triumphant thirteen had waited in or around the pool, the defeated dozen had plotted out their offering as it had been requested of them.</p><p> </p><p>What they had come up with, presenting to their thrilled little audience, had been something they could describe anywhere from exaggerated to off-key, to loud, to just… gut busting funny. Nothing had been spared in the costume department, what little they had on hand, but the improvisational nature of it had really only made things better.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, look,” Maya produced her phone, showing the photo now adorning the background of her screen, featuring him in what he had been informed had been part of one of the elder Shelby siblings’ old Halloween costumes, the year they’d gone as an astronaut, though Nathan couldn’t remember if it had belonged to his brother Matt or his sister Kate first. Of the eight brothers and sisters, the five eldest had all had their turn with it, the youngest three no doubt inheriting it in time. For that night though, it had landed on Lucas’ head.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s right before Kenji almost knocked me over with that giant plastic candy cane he was twirling around,” he laughed as he looked at her phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Poor Zay,” she chuckled, thinking about who <em>had</em> been knocked over after Kenji had missed ‘Space Lucas.’ He had quickly recovered and rejoined his teammates, though he had not let ‘that damned candy’ out of his sight for the rest of their ‘show,’ which mostly consisted of their belting any number of songs they could more or less recall by heart. Étienne, Dylan, and Ray had rallied to provide a beat, which had maybe been their saving grace.</p><p> </p><p>The highs and lows of the evening had balanced out to leave them feeling all in all that the party had been everything they could have wanted. They had left it, the two of them on their own, peacefully walking along back to the car, hand in hand. Maya’s dress, dried again, looked as clean as it had done when she’d left. Lucas’ shirt, on the other hand, had the markings of its adventures through the yard and in the jaws of the Shelby family dog. Nathan had tossed him one of his school shirts before they’d left, so he wouldn’t have to walk around in a torn up ‘shirt.’ He still had that, slung over his shoulder, as ‘evidence’ when his mother would ask where his own shirt had gone.</p><p> </p><p>When they reached the Hart house, they went inside and found Maya’s mother asleep on the couch, leaning to her husband, who held a finger to his lips to tell them not to wake her before pointing that finger to Lucas. Maya held up both hands: ten minutes, then brought him to her room, where they could just hear the low yipping of the puppies.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, guys…” Maya spoke quietly as they approached the area that they had fenced off to hold the newest residents, the trio rapidly moving near to their blond friend when they saw and heard her. Maya climbed over the ‘fence’ and sat on the ground, so Lucas did the same. She had already picked up little Queen and rested her in her lap, while she held her brother Ghost in her arms, so Lucas took up the last, named in his honor.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Tuck,” he gave the little one a scratch. It could have been purely by chance that of the three pups, this one seemed to favor him, but one way or the other, he would end up trotting around him even before they’d brought him here two days ago, so maybe it was more that Maya had seen this and chosen to give <em>him</em> the name meant to be in his honor over the other male puppy. As it was, the other two wore their own names well enough. Ghost, or Ghost Hunter, <em>was</em> sort of a curious little one, digging about, while peaceful Queen had a way of lounging around like a lady of royalty.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had been there of course, when the trio had been picked up from Ray’s house two days ago. They were bigger than they had been in the beginning, ready to be taken, though it had still felt, to Maya especially, that it was sort of unfair to take them from their mother. But then Ray’s family just couldn’t keep them. It was already something that the puppies would stay together, as Maya would remind herself.</p><p> </p><p>They had stayed with them all through the rest of the day after bringing them here, the two of them, and Maya’s parents, and Riley and Nadine had come along, too, as had Zay, Dylan, and Asher. They had done their best to make the transition smooth. Eventually they’d had to go home, though Maya had reported that the first night had been just fine. To him and to Riley she had added how she had spent part of the night laid out across the fence as she was now, looking after the trio, who were probably just fine. She cared so much for them, and Lucas loved to see her with them. She had always been meant to have them, he believed that.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe I should leave some videos with Riley for when we’re gone on vacation. They might forget me.”</p><p> </p><p>“No one could do that,” he promised, and she smirked. “I mean it. Who sees that face and forgets it?” he asked, to Tuck in his arms. The puppy gave a small yelp of a bark, and Lucas accepted this as agreement. “See?”</p><p> </p><p>“See, that’s not fair, you have a puppy, that’s cheating,” she gave a weak complaint, which only made him want to carry on, covering his namesake’s face with his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Believe me now? Hey…” he startled and looked down, as Tuck had gone nipping at his finger.</p><p> </p><p>“Still cute,” she informed him. “Which isn’t a bad thing.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was hoping it wouldn’t be,” he smiled. Both leaning, cautiously minding the animals in their arms and lap, they briefly kissed.</p><p> </p><p>The trio was already showing its presence on Maya’s walls, a handful of drawings capturing them at play, or sleeping, with their mother, here at the house, with Lucas… There were plenty more in Maya’s sketchbooks, as he’d seen. The walls had continued to evolve since he’d first seen them. Some pieces had been removed, stored back to safety, but others remained, that had been there all along. The others had gradually been joined or replaced by new images, showing Maya’s life in Austin as it had grown along with her, with them. He would find it strange, should a day come when her walls weren’t this adorned.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I open the thing now?” she asked, pointing to a small package on her desk. He had given it to her when he’d come to pick her up earlier but had told her to wait to open it when they came back. He got up, carrying Tuck with him, went to retrieve ‘the thing,’ then brought it to her, swapping it with little Ghost so she could have both hands free to work the wrapping.</p><p> </p><p>“Brand new sketchbook,” he said, as she held it now. “For your trip. I figured you’ll see a lot of things out there you’ll want to tell us about, want to draw, so that one’s for that, or… whatever you want it for, I mean you don’t have to…”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I want to,” she promised, beaming happily. “Cover to cover, you just wait, Huckleberry.” When she’d been afraid they’d be moving away, he’d leant her the pocket watch she’d given him, for reassurance. Now she had this, and he could see her drawing in that sketchbook, given to her by him, as her essentially conversing with him while they were an ocean away from one another. And that could not have been any better of a present, it really couldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“Then I can’t wait to see it,” he nodded, moving the puppies in his arms, never speaking how seeing the book would signal Maya’s return.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0358"><h2>358. Their Wishes to Return</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was no putting a stopper to time, and just as it felt they had only celebrated the end of their basketball season a moment ago, soon it had been the end of the school year, and then suddenly the day had come for Maya and her parents to take off on their three-week vacation, and for her friends to see her off.</p><p> </p><p>The end of the school year, well they hadn’t really felt that one coming, but how could it have gone any other way? Finals had more or less meant constant focus on the days to come, sure, so it hadn’t been summer that they’d been thinking about as much as getting past each test, each assignment…</p><p> </p><p>Maya, Lucas, all their friends, they’d locked into this whole preparation for finals like a well-oiled machine made of nine pieces. They didn’t all have the same classes, didn’t have them all at the same time even if they did, but even so the mission was clear. No one was getting left behind, everyone would help everyone, in what way they could.</p><p> </p><p>The last day, the last final test completed, they had come to wait for one another, one by one, on their bench outside the school, like they’d just dumped out a boulder from their shoulders. The next few days after that, none of them looked like they could muster much in the way of energy.</p><p> </p><p>But summer wouldn’t be denied for long, and so it did finally kick in. They were free, for the foreseeable future. Another Austin summer was beginning, as much as it would have its peculiarities this year. It didn’t worry any of them so much as it might have done earlier. They’d had time to let that initial feeling wear off of them. No one looked forward to the separation, but it was what it was.</p><p> </p><p>And in the meantime, it <em>was</em> summer. Maya had been busily looking forward to both her imminent departure and Farkle and Smackle’s arrival. She joined Lucas in seeing that all would be ready for his own guest’s arrival, the biggest part turning out to be the relocation of Dash’s favored sleeping spot. She could not count the hours the two of them had spent, in all ridiculousness, doing their best to coax the dog to her new bed.</p><p> </p><p>“I should just let Farkle have my bed, then <em>I’ll</em> sleep on the floor,” Lucas had declared in exasperation, one afternoon, as he’d watched Maya sat there next to the dog bed, Dash in her lap, stroking the stubborn pup. Maya had looked back at him with a frown. “Hey, I don’t mind,” he’d shrugged.</p><p> </p><p>“Liar,” she’d shaken her head. “No one’s sleeping on the floor. Not even you, Dash.” The dog turned up her eyes at the sound of her name. “Bed?” Maya asked her. The dog sat up, then bounded off, back to the guest bed. She was big enough to climb up on her own now, of course, and she sat there, looked up to Lucas, and barked.</p><p> </p><p>“You sure about that?” Lucas had sighed.</p><p> </p><p>It had taken many more attempts, over many more days, but in the end Maya <em>had</em> been right. Dash had abandoned the bed in favor of the dog bed. The way was cleared for Farkle’s arrival, in a couple weeks’ time.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s canine activities had not ended there. Now she had her own trio to see to. She’d been taking her puppies to Riley’s house more and more, the better to let them grow more familiar with the place, with the family. Her concerns here did seem to stand in opposition. On the one hand, she had this pitiful image in her head of those three hairballs making sad dog noises for three weeks because she’d gone away, because she’d left them behind. And then on the other side, well… What if she came back and they had forgotten her, didn’t want to come back home?</p><p> </p><p>In the weeks since they’d come into their home, the puppies had really been part of the family. It was easy enough for each of them to be looked after, with her and her parents, though Maya herself did carry most of the load, as she’d promised to do when she had made the pitch to even take in all three puppies. If any of her friends came in offering a helping hand, then who was she to refuse them?</p><p> </p><p>When she’d take the dogs to Riley’s, on top of her plans for them, she’d be on hand to prepare for the incoming of Smackle. The bed had been moved in, the same bed borrowed again from Zay’s Aunt Susanne. It had sort of felt weird to Maya to see it there the first time, as used as she’d become the summer before to see it in her own room. Now it was in Riley’s room, just waiting for its occupant to return for this summer. The room was soon just as ready.</p><p> </p><p>The last part had involved her packing her bags. Lucas had seen her through much of that. What he’d seen there for the most part was how nervously excited… excitedly nervous… she was about the trip. She’d never done anything like this, never had to pack for so long a stay away from home. The first time she’d tried to start packing, it had sized up like she was taking most of her things. That had led her to call in Lucas, and so they’d worked their way through it all until she had a more reasonably packed pair of suitcases and a backpack set to go. That was the night before. Now it was morning, and they would meet again at the airport.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was there, and Riley, and Nadine, and Zay, and Dylan and Asher. Maya had said her goodbyes to each of them, one by one. She could have done so the day before, at her home, their homes, anywhere, she’d told them as much, but they wanted to be here now, just as they’d vowed they would be back here when she would land again. One by one, as she had said her part, they had walked off, until it was down to her and her best friends.</p><p> </p><p>“Everything’ll be fine, right?” Riley told her, with that smile of hers, the one that barely guarded back her blubbering and tears. “We’ve done worse than three weeks before. This will be nothing. We’ll be back before we know it, and you can tell me about all the things you’ll have seen, yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“And I’ll have souvenirs,” Maya nodded along with her, sharing in her attempts to keep it together. “Riley, you and I we spent way too long apart once, but this is not the same, right? This is just like… normal people apart time.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to be normal people,” Riley pulled her in a tight hug, and Maya gave as good as she got.</p><p> </p><p>“Normal people, what do they even know? The weird ones are better, more interesting. And, oh Honey, you’re one of the weirdest ones out there, okay? Not a soul in Europe can compare, so why bother with them.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll take good care of Ghost, and Queen, and Tuck,” Riley vowed before they stepped aside. Her friend had given her and Lucas a look, stolen one more hug from her, and then hurried off to join the rest of their group, leaving the two of them alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we just skip this part?” Maya asked with a sigh. “I’ll just turn around, you go to the bathroom, or something, and as far as I’ll know, you’ll be right back… for three weeks,” she suggested innocently enough. He made no attempt to pretend as though that would work. They’d both been dreading this moment, much as they’d moved into as okay of a state of mind as they were bound to get. She was trying to skate by it, not crack open, but he couldn’t do that. So instead he held her face in his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m counting down the days already,” he informed her. “Until you’re back here again, with me… with us… but mostly with me,” he admitted, and she smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t tell them,” she promised with a whisper in return.</p><p> </p><p>“The days, the hours, maybe the minutes by the last few days,” he added before kissing her. She leaned in close, taking her time as he did. This would be the last of them until she came back. Even as they looked back to each other, hearts trilling, they knew it was time for her to rejoin her parents, to make her way through and soon board her plane. It was time for him to go to the rest of their friends and head back home.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going to get real friendly with your mail carrier, I’m just saying, tomorrow morning…”</p><p> </p><p>“I think it takes longer than that for a letter to get in from…”</p><p> </p><p>“Not if it was mailed from Austin,” she suggested, smirking. The look on his face was priceless, and could easily stay stuck in her head for the next three weeks. “I was up way too early this morning, snuck out to the mailbox,” she explained. “So, until I land in Greece, that’s all you’ve got. I’ll write on the plane.”</p><p> </p><p>“Speaking of which…” he spotted Katy Hart waving at them to get their attention. Maya looked, too, let out a breath, hugged him good. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>Moving to rejoin Shawn, Katy, and everyone else, they held hands. They didn’t let go until they had to, until she and her parents would be going through the gate. With a wave back to all of them, she moved out of sight. Lucas let out a breath. Now the countdown really started.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay, man?” Zay asked, tapping his shoulder as they moved to head out of the airport. “You want to go see a movie or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m fine,” Lucas chuckled. “Really. She’ll be back in three weeks, Farkle and Smackle will be here by then… Now come on, what do you guys want to do?”</p><p> </p><p>He had to tell himself part of all this would be in his head. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t not seen her for a few days at a time before, and she’d only been ‘gone’ a few minutes. Somehow, maybe, it was the certainty of knowing he’d said goodbye to her for almost a month that turned those few minutes into something unbearable already, that made him miss her already. When they’d believed she’d be moving back to New York, he’d let her have his pocket watch. Now he was the one holding on to it in his pocket.</p><p> </p><p>The days would pass, some slower, others faster. But then she would be back. How long had she deserved a vacation like this, travelling with her family, and now she was getting it. He loved her, he could only ever be happy for her. Still he knew on the next morning he would be waiting to see if he did get that letter she’d mailed earlier. He didn’t know what it could say, but he wanted to find out. It’d be one day less without her.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0359"><h2>359. Their Wishes to Reunite</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’d received another letter that morning, combined with postcards alike, it was the seventeenth piece of mail he had received, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, even though they would come now like tales from another life, because this was the day, the one he’d looked forward to for the past three weeks. Maya was coming home.</p><p> </p><p>Once she was really there, back in Austin, instead of up in the sky on the plane as she would be at this moment, he could tell himself that this would all be something to look back on, like they’d learned something. They hadn’t seen each other for three weeks, and the world hadn’t come to an end, had it? From now on, they would be grown and mature about it, if/when another separation occurred.</p><p> </p><p>Even when she’d land, he wouldn’t exactly be able to go on saying it had all been breezy, could he? Oh, he hadn’t been moping around all these days, no, but he had felt her absence, felt it deeply. If he hadn’t already known how he loved her, this would have been one long needed wakeup call. But he <em>did</em> know, and with her being gone he had been given a glimpse of what it might have been like if she <em>had</em> moved away, his life without her. He might once have found it silly for someone to say they ached in someone’s absence, but he’d felt it now, felt that ache like some part of him had gone missing. And every time he was reminded of it, there’d be that ache.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas, you keep looking at that clock, I don’t think it’ll go any faster,” his father told him. Lucas turned back to look at him. “We don’t leave for the airport for another hour.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know, I was just… wondering what time it was,” he tried to give an innocent shrug. His father did not look convinced. With a sigh, he went out to take Dash for a walk. The dog would give no complaint here.</p><p> </p><p>Maya’s letters didn’t detail too much about what she saw or did on the trip itself, but then she had told him that would be how it would be from the start. She intended to tell him all these things when she got back, with words, with pictures, with drawings. So instead her letters would tell him small anecdotes, tell him how she was feeling. And she would tell him how she missed him, too, not in words.</p><p> </p><p>Each letter would feature a quick little drawing in the corner showing a place she’d been, and there in front of those sites she would have drawn a small version of the two of them stood together, as though someone had taken a picture of them. That was maybe the part of her letters he looked forward to the most, like he would open that envelope asking himself ‘where did we go today?’</p><p> </p><p>The more the days progressed, the pencil boy and girl would be holding hands, or his arm would be around her, then both arms until he was holding her near. In this morning’s letter, he was pressing a kiss to the top of her head, as he would do, when they were flesh and blood, not lines on a page.</p><p> </p><p>He knew Maya’s neighbor, Mrs. Talbot, had been entrusted to pick up their mail while she and her parents were away. Lucas wondered what the old woman would make of all the letters addressed to the girl next door from a boy in town. He had responded to each one of hers, and he fully intended to keep replying, to the one he’d just gotten, to the ones he would likely receive in the days to come… In <em>his</em> letters, he would tell her about happenings in the area while she was gone, what he and the others had been up to, and the puppies, over at Riley’s… He couldn’t draw too well, but he had gotten kind of good at one sort of cartoonish puppy, so he would put one of those in his letters, to tag back on her drawings. He’d make them look a bit like one of her three, alternating, from Ghost, all chocolate brown, to Queen, white around the nose, to Tuck, with a streak of white down his face…</p><p> </p><p>Somewhere in those letters she would hear about one thing in particular which she would find out about long before she even got to read a single one of his letters. She would know when she got through that gate and they were all there waiting for her, all except two she would have been waiting on.</p><p> </p><p>For a while, when it had become known that Maya’s vacation would cross paths with Farkle and Smackle’s arrival, he’d been trying to see, whether he meant to or not, if there was any way to move things around, so none of them got shortchanged. He knew it could be complicated to move certain pieces around though, so he hadn’t put too much into it, and everything had remained as it had been arranged.</p><p> </p><p>The very next day after Maya had flown off, Lucas had been talking with Farkle, talking about his arrival in the week to come. And Farkle had been the one to even bring it up. He wished he could come when Maya was there, too. And then Lucas had finally said as much. From there, one thing had led to another, and it had been settled. Farkle and Smackle would come down after Maya’s return, two days after she landed. She still had no idea; they would surprise her. It might be a disappointment at first, having expected them to be there, but the surprise would more than make up for it.</p><p> </p><p>When he’d returned from taking Dash on her walk, the others had arrived. Riley, Zay, Nadine, they were sitting around, while Asher and Dylan were attempting to fix the net on the hoop in his backyard. He could see Riley was showing Zay and Nadine what looked to be a big sign she had made. They were ready to go.</p><p> </p><p>“Time to go?” he asked his father when he brought Dash back into the house. His father looked at the clock, and it was still too early, her flight wouldn’t come for a while, but maybe he decided the wait would be more bearable once they were out there. So, they all packed into the minivan and took off to go meet the returning Hunter-Harts.</p><p> </p><p>They would wait nearly an hour and a half until the scheduled landing time, but already a small delay had been announced, so in total it was just over two hours of them sitting or standing in the airport before the doors opened and the passengers started to come out, leaving the six friends to begin scanning the faces for the one they hoped to see.</p><p> </p><p>Riley had been the first to declare she had spotted her, but already two seconds before his eyes had found her, so stunned he hadn’t managed to speak before Riley had announced that “There she is, there she is, Maya!” He’d seen her, and his heart had started racing. All he could think of was ‘Has she always been this beautiful? Did I miss it? Did I forget?’ Nothing short of sunlit, windswept, that was her, and he was transfixed.</p><p> </p><p>In that time, Riley had gotten up there, brandishing her sign with pride, to which Nadine had pointed out she might as well hand it over if she also wanted to hug their returning friend. At once, Riley had passed the sign aside, just in time, as Maya came rushing toward them, peeling away from her mother and father.</p><p> </p><p>“Peaches!” Riley called, just as her best friend ran into her arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Nice sign, I think I could see it all the way up there,” Maya declared, beaming, before looking around. In no time, Dylan had piled on, and Nadine, and Zay, and Asher, though Maya’s eyes had found the one straggling at the back, or, as she would teasingly call it later, waiting his turn. At the same time, she couldn’t help but notice… “Where are…”</p><p> </p><p>“Why don’t you ask him?” Asher nodded toward Lucas. Maya moved from the group, sidling up to him.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to do this whole ‘run up and jump in arms’ thing. Might be a little weird here now,” she admitted, just above a whisper. He nodded for a beat, then scooped her up off her feet, making her laugh and hold on at once. She’d almost forgotten exactly how much comfort she could feel when he held her… almost. “Well, that’ll do,” she decided before kissing him. When he set her down, she let out a breath, smiled back up at him. “What’s the last letter you…”</p><p> </p><p>“The Louvre,” he reported, and she nodded to herself, counting on her fingers before presenting him with the number of letters left to come.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are they? Farkle, Smackle?”</p><p> </p><p>“New York,” he announced. She frowned, confused. “We came to the conclusion that it was worth the trouble to move some things around, so… they’ll be here in two days.”</p><p> </p><p>“And, if it’s alright with your mom and dad,” Riley stepped up, “Smackle can stay at your house, like last summer, and… maybe I could come and sleep over, too?”</p><p> </p><p>Maya didn’t have to ask if she meant the whole time; she knew she did, and as far as she was concerned, she could move right in.</p><p> </p><p>How it had been three weeks since they’d all stood here, she couldn’t say. She had a head full of memories of her vacation, and at the same time she remembered exactly when they’d all stood here, saying goodbye. And now they were on their way out, headed to the Matthews house after getting their luggage and their car. Lucas had joined them, and so had Riley, her two best friends now riding on either side of her in the backseat. There was plenty she wanted to say, to them, to all of them, to say and hear about, but right about then, what she wanted most of all was to sit here, holding one hand here, and one hand there, to breathe in that Austin air and know that, after having had three wonderful weeks with her family, she was now home again, with her other family, with her friends.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas was very much at ease with this silence, too, just knowing that she was here again. He had her hand in his, and he could feel it all in there, how she felt it… It was good to be back.</p><p> </p><p>Soon they would be at the Matthews house, where the returning travelers would be greeted by eager friends, and a trio of frenzied pups, who came skidding toward the blonde who now crouched and knelt to welcome them. The little hair balls had grown just a bit since she’d last seen them, just enough that she could notice it and it could make her cry, seeing how they had not forgotten her at all.</p><p> </p><p>The afternoon was spent with the long tale of the family vacation, though most of the talking would come from Katy and Shawn, as Maya knew she wanted to share her own side of it with her friends, with Riley in countless tales, and with Lucas with a sketchbook which had gone from blank to full to the brim in the span of those weeks away; it held all her stories.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0360"><h2>360. Their Wishes to Rest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, Lucas was awakened by the sound of… paper? He opened his eyes to find Maya sat on the opposite bed, holding and reading a sheet of paper. There was a small book in her lap he recognized as the sketchbook he’d given her, and on top of that sat a stack of envelopes he guessed were his letters to her. “Maya?” he blinked.</p><p> </p><p>“Your mom let me in,” she reported, looking up from her letter. “Still on Europe time, hope it’s alright,” she cringed apologetically.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing more alright,” Lucas assured her, sitting up. “So, you got my letters?” She lifted up the stack.</p><p> </p><p>“Mrs. Talbot might think you’re a <em>bit</em> of a stalker. Of course, if you are, then what does it make me?” she asked, pointing to the similar stack she had spotted sitting on his desk when she’d come in. He climbed out of his bed and came to sit with her. “Hey, Stalker.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Stalker,” he smiled. “How many did you read?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, all of them. I told you, I’ve been up a while. I’m reading them again now,” she explained before holding up the one she’d pulled from its envelope and pointing to the little drawing of the puppy he’d done on this one, which was Queen. “You really nailed that look she gets,” Maya declared, thinking of how she’d missed those three while she’d been away. “It was getting pretty bad by the end, whenever I’d see a dog, I’d just stop to say hello. Not everyone was exactly into that… the owners, not the dogs, the dogs loved me, and I’m getting sort of rambly…”</p><p> </p><p>“Not against it,” he assured her; he could have listened to her for hours, even mildly self-conscious of his being in his PJs as he was.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to get breakfast before…” she held up the sketchbook. He figured it’d be best, so after telling her he’d meet her downstairs, he quickly got dressed and went to find his mother and father asking Maya about her vacation. She had played vague here again in such a way, as she’d steal a look toward him a lot of the time, that told him she wanted to hold off so she could tell him all about it when they’d be alone again. He knew she’d stayed at Riley’s the night before, so she’d probably done her storytelling there already.</p><p> </p><p>The highlight of that moment, the four of them sat around the table, had come when Maya had presented souvenirs to each of his parents. His father had received a backgammon set she’d bought in Greece (“I thought you might like it, you and Pappy Joe.”) and his mother had been given a scarf she’d found in Italy. Much as Maya would insist she hadn’t paid very much for it, his mother didn’t care. All that mattered was that Maya had chosen it for her, and in Italy no less. She had draped it around her neck right then and there, asking her husband, son, and guest how she looked. Maya was pleased to see she genuinely liked it. Lucas had once told her that his mother lacked the ability to lie about what she did or didn’t like. If she hadn’t liked her gift, she would have shown it.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, they had retreated back to his room, where the sketchbook awaited her return on the guest bed. She had her bag in hand though, and as they sat down, she reached in and unloaded one thing after another, admitting that she couldn’t help what she found. A couple of t-shirts, some candy and snack things they didn’t have at home, a few small figurines, monuments. And after all that, with a smirk on her face, she presented him with a small hat before perching it on his head. As she explained it, she couldn’t do anything but get it for him when she saw it while they were in France.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t know if you can tip <em>this</em> one, but…” she laughed before she could carry on her sentence, while he tried to find a reflective surface to take in what he must have looked like. Then he turned back to her and she had her phone aimed at him, “Say ‘fromage!’” she kept on laughing before snapping the shot.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me see,” he asked, reaching for the phone. She held back her arm to keep it away, both thus simultaneously falling – backward for her, forward for him – until he could close his hand over hers and look at the picture. “Oh, I can do better than that,” he tipped his head at the startled face he made in the image.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I kind of like that one,” she insisted, her laughter pulling back, slowly, as she – and he – became aware of their current predicament, with him halfway lying over her. He got a look on his face she called the pre-apology, and she nodded her head, smiling. So, he leaned in to kiss her, and both hands abandoned the phone. There was something to it all feeling new, and good, and as they went on kissing, it felt they were pouring out how they had both missed one another and letting the other know. ‘I missed you,’ it said. ‘I missed you so much… I love you so much…’</p><p> </p><p>When they stopped, that dizzy breathlessness in them, they looked to each other, smiling, as he moved to rest next to her, still looking at her. He reached out, brushing hair from her forehead, then still just holding her face, her, the girl who’d come into his life, who he couldn’t do without.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to see the sketchbook?” she asked, voice soft. He nodded, and she sat up, grabbing it where it had remained, at her feet, before flopping back down, on her stomach now. “Well, the first one, I mean…” she opened the book, the first page, the inside of the cover really, showing the airport, the small group seeing her off, with him front and center.</p><p> </p><p>“Is the other cover you coming back yesterday?” he asked, and she gave a look that said ‘I’m not telling… but yeah.’</p><p> </p><p>“Want me to tell it or not?” she asked, and he nodded. “Alright then, here we go.”</p><p> </p><p>One page at a time, she would show him a new drawing, and he would take it all in before looking at her to hear whatever story she might have had to share on the moment in question, which she would happily oblige. The thing they would come to understand in the end was that, looking at what she’d drawn, he could already see it very well, a lot of the associated story.</p><p> </p><p>She would tell him about each landing in a new country, her first impressions, as she’d step out of the airport, or sail on a ferry, or ride a train… Those were some of his favorites. He could just imagine her mind bursting wide, taking all that she saw, trying to internalize as much of it as possible. She’d taken pictures, too, but they didn’t keep her from wanting to put it all down to paper just as she’d done. This trip was the kind of chance she’d never dared imagine, but she’d been there, finally, and she well intended to make the most of it.</p><p> </p><p>Then there’d be the view from her hotel room, and this was often very detailed, which he could imagine was normal, with how many opportunities she would have had to sit there and further perfect it.</p><p> </p><p>From there, it was a mix of any number of things she would have encountered in each location. A few more views, taking up both pages, other times a statue, a building, even just a sign hanging on or from something. And there’d be people, too, portraits of passersby or even dogs… There were a few dogs… And sometimes she’d have drawn her mother and father, or herself. When she’d draw herself, he could always spot the sketchbook, in her hands, or protruding from the small bag hanging on her shoulder; he was with her, that was what it said.</p><p> </p><p>Over what would be revealed in time to be hours, they had passed from images of Greece, to Italy, to France, to the very last page, inside the back cover, which, as promised, showed her return and so must have been drawn the night before, or that morning even. She’d said it would be filled cover to cover, and it was exactly what she’d done.</p><p> </p><p>“And that’s it,” she breathed, when the sketchbook had been shut again, laying her head atop the closed book, her constant companion through the past weeks. She didn’t know that she could have taken it all in as much without all those moments she’d spent with this book open in her lap, or on a table, wherever, pencil in hand. She knew she could look at all of these, tomorrow, next month, next year, or when she’d be old and gray, and she would be transported back there, to being that girl seeing the world open before her for the first time ever.</p><p> </p><p>“So, how much are you going to wipe the floor with us in French class next year?” he asked, and she laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I mean I don’t want to brag…” she spoke innocently, which he took to mean ‘I’ll be able to see my reflection in the tiles, that’s how much.’ “Speaking of France, I didn’t tell you how I almost lost the sketchbook once,” she sat back up, prompting him to do the same. She relayed the story of it, on the day before they were to come back. They’d gone to breakfast, and knowing it was to be one of their last ones before going home, she’d been a bit distracted. They’d walked out and made it five minutes on foot before she had a sudden flash of panic, feeling for her bag and not finding it. “I ran back, fast as I could, I tripped, see?” she pointed to a scrape on her left knee. “I got back to the restaurant, out of breath, bleeding a little, probably looked like some weirdo, piling on English and French. But then the girl who’d served us, she’d found my bag, held on to it, gave it back. I showed her drawings while she fixed my knee. Then my parents caught up to me. They’d figured out what happened so they were more relieved than anything. We took it easy the rest of the day, enjoyed the city before we had to pack up and go.”</p><p> </p><p>Much as she’d spent a lot of time drawing in her book, a lot more time had been spent, just the three of them as a family, and she could not have asked for more. It just felt like the kind of thing they needed, just to be in a place where they were all they knew around them, all they could really rely on. It reminded her of how it had felt, in the beginning, when she and her mother had moved to Austin, only to the extreme, finding themselves in a country where people spoke another language. And it was wonderful, all of it, getting to experience it, having each other to experience it with.</p><p> </p><p>“One day, we need to do something like this, you and me, the rest of us, just get on a plane, go out there,” she gestured to the world beyond, and he smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“That’ll cost a lot… also there’s still the age thing,” he had to point out, but just as soon he thought of the obvious solution to all this: time. “But if we went, in say three years, well… We’ll just have finished high school, and by then we could have saved up all we need, right?” She was beaming now: they had a plan.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0361"><h2>361. Their Wishes to Welcome</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, like two days before, it was off to the airport, this time to receive someone, two someones, starting a vacation rather than returning from one. Maya was slowly finding her way back into a regular sleeping schedule, but it did help that she was in her own bed again, in her own home. When they’d finally come back here, it had flooded her with so much happiness to see that little house of hers, to step through that door and be home. Oh, she had loved the hotels, all three of them, and she could still remember them if she closed her eyes, but being here… Nothing could compare. It made finding her way back into the rhythm of things a whole lot easier, which was good. She needed to be Maya of Austin, Hart of Texas, and not the traveler. The family vacation was its own thing, its own treasured memory.</p><p> </p><p>They were tasked with picking up Riley and Nadine that morning, while Lucas and his parents would snatch up Zay, Dylan, and Asher, the two cars set to meet at the airport. Soon, Maya was sat in the back of her mother’s car, she and the other girls singing along to the radio, because what else could you do when you were on your way to pick up the last member of your much loved but rarely activated band?</p><p> </p><p>She knew they had done it for themselves as much as for her, but she had to admit she was so glad they had waited to come until now. It meant a shorter stay, as they’d have to return for school in the end, but it was a small sacrifice. She imagined what it would have been like, her coming back, them already having been there all this time, her having missed all these things they could have been doing together… Now, because of this choice they had made in her absence, she would be there today to welcome them as she had been meant to do.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t even feel real that a whole year had gone by since they’d been here for six weeks in what they had called the Great Summer of Texas. But then it was just as mad that they had already made it through one year of high school, so what did she know, right? It was even harder to believe she’d lived in Austin for almost three whole years now, that between then and now she <em>had</em> seen her friends again, a few times, when for so long it had felt like she would never see them again.</p><p> </p><p>The car pulled into the airport lot, and Nadine pointed to show the Friars – the boys were just ahead of them. The seven friends joined up, followed by the four parents, all of them having their own conversations, all of them anxious for the arrivals to come. Maya could just imagine Mrs. Friar’s state that morning, with Farkle coming, or as her son’s friend would refer to him when witnessing all this ‘the prodigal son.’ It never stopped being amusing for them, no malice in it at all.</p><p> </p><p>They already had so many plans made between all of them, in anticipation for their summer guests’ arrival. The details had long been set, despite slight adjustments to the dates now, but it didn’t keep them from what they had locked in, like camping, the Babineaux party, and Christmas in August. What changed in this being their second summer with them was that both Farkle and Smackle had already done the tourist thing the year before. This summer there was no ‘Texas Bucket,’ there was just a bunch of friends enjoying summer together.</p><p> </p><p>“How long until they’re supposed to land?” Asher asked as they went through the door.</p><p> </p><p>“About forty minutes,” Riley reported. “If they’re on time.” She had another sign today, of course. This one she’d had ready for a while, seeing as the two New Yorkers had been meant to arrive a couple weeks before. She had taken the sign from the year before, which she’d kept, and she’d added to it. Her logic was that, should this become tradition for them, then she wanted it to show. In years’ time, it could be that Farkle and Smackle would be greeted by a worn but much beloved and embellished sign.</p><p> </p><p>They would spend their time waiting on their friends by perusing the stores and shops at their disposal throughout the airport. It was easier for Maya now to imagine someone from far away coming here and experiencing all this upon landing. She’d done all that, three times over, and it was just so… oh, how could she even explain it? She looked at all these things around her, saw the thing that could soon be some visitor’s souvenir of their time in Austin. To her, they couldn’t hold so much meaning; it was already her home. To others, it would say… ‘I was here. I went to this place, I made memories, and this will keep them.’ It gave them power.</p><p> </p><p>“Almost time,” Dylan told them suddenly, and with a gasp they took off at a run, which they slowed to a hurried walk before long, when Nadine pointed out it might not have been seen for what it was for them to go running through an airport, with a large sign.</p><p> </p><p>“What, it worked in Home Alone,” Zay complained.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, a lot of things happened there that wouldn’t now,” Lucas told him.</p><p> </p><p>They made it back to their parents waiting at the gates with a few minutes to spare. As far as they could see, their friends’ flight was set to land on time. Those last few minutes would be spent with all of them staring at the screens, like something enthralling would happen there, instead of what did happen, which was practically nothing. But then… they had landed, they were here.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ve been here way too many times the last few weeks,” Maya told Lucas, who nodded, as the doors opened and they looked to find their friends. The sign was already deployed, and soon it would do its part, welcoming Farkle Minkus and Isadora Smackle for their second summer in Austin. “Did he get taller again? He’s going to be taller than you, how is <em>that</em> even possible?”</p><p> </p><p>“Asking myself the same thing,” Lucas told her, even though he hadn’t exactly known Farkle in those ‘shorter’ years. He’d seen enough pictures to be able to imagine.</p><p> </p><p>Mrs. Friar, to the surprise of no one, had been the first to catch up their tall friend into a welcoming hug. She was by no means a short figure herself, but she greeted the boy with impressed words to his growth. Farkle took this enthusiastic greeting with much less confusion as he might have done the year before. He greeted Mrs. Friar in return, with an earnest expression of his being happy to see her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Mr. Friar,” he nodded to the man once he’d been able to move forward. Lucas’ father shook his hand, clapped his shoulder, welcoming him back.</p><p> </p><p>“Smackle, hey!” Riley went to the girl.</p><p> </p><p>“So where am I staying, your place or Maya’s?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>Maya knew Riley had offered the trade back in all honesty, to have Smackle stay with her after all, as she would have done if not for the vacation, but she’d still had to think about it. Sure, Riley wanted this for her, but Maya also knew she’d been looking forward to it, too. Plus, they’d set everything back at the Matthews house before Maya had taken off, so it would have felt strange to move it all back again because Maya <em>was</em> going to be on hand for the whole time of her visit. So, for all those reasons, Maya had told Riley that they should keep things as they were. Smackle would stay at the Matthews house. There was nothing stopping Maya from going to sleep over there a few times, was there?</p><p> </p><p>And then the night before, Riley had called to inform her that Auggie had come down with the chicken pox, something she knew Smackle had not. So, to keep her from risking the chance of spending a chunk of her vacation laid out with this, it was decided that they had no choice but to make the switch after all. They’d done all the moving around that morning before coming to the airport, making sure nothing would carry over from one house to the other.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be staying with me, with us,” Maya revealed, indicating her parents nearby before relaying Auggie’s unfortunate turn with the pox.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh… yes, that’s for the best,” Smackle declared as matter-of-factly as they might have expected her to do, although Maya was just about sure the girl was both relieved to have been spared the possibility and still somewhat nervous to think she might somehow get it anyway. “And you, both of you, you already had it?” she asked Maya and Riley.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yeah, when we were ten,” Maya recalled with a smirk. “She got it first, they all told me I’d have to keep away until she was better. <em>That</em> was never going to happen, I crawled through her window, sat with her, kept her from scratching her spots. By the time anyone knew I was there, it was too late, and the next morning…” she poked her own face in a few places to indicate the pox.</p><p> </p><p>“And then we got to stay together all those days until we were better,” Riley jumped back in, and the two girls shared a fond smile in remembrance. No matter how miserable they’d been, they were together, and that had made it just better enough that they could bear it.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you’ll be safe,” Maya told her. “And Riley will stay with us, too, just in case. Nadine’s looking to do the same, so it might be the four of us for the next week or so.”</p><p> </p><p>“The whole band,” Smackle smiled at this.</p><p> </p><p>“The whole band,” Maya smiled back with a nod.</p><p> </p><p>Lucas had finally gotten a chance to welcome his summer roommate/friend/brother after he’d been ‘released’ by his parents. Maya was right, he was definitely taller now.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m really glad we decided to do it this way,” Farkle told him. “It wouldn’t have been right the other way.” Lucas looked over at his girlfriend, talking happily with Smackle, Riley and Nadine. It really wouldn’t have been.</p><p> </p><p>And soon after, Maya came up and hugged the new arrival as well. It was always something special when he was there with them, and she doubted anyone, even Smackle, would call her on making that distinction. He and Riley were her oldest friends, and much as she was wholly happy with her life here, when she got to stand there and be in the presence of both of her childhood friends, it really felt that things were better. And if she needed any more proof, the choice to delay his arrival could not have been a better one. This was the friend Farkle Minkus was, and once he came into your life, how could you ever do without? None could, none of them here.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, let’s get your things, you two,” Shawn stepped up. He still got that look sometimes, seeing Farkle, and it would amuse Maya and Riley to no end. He couldn’t get over who both of his parents were, and they wouldn’t let him forget.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0362"><h2>362. Their Wishes to Repeat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been tricky that morning, figuring out how to rearrange things in her room. The space where the spare bed had been placed the year before was now occupied by the puppies, and if they were to put the bed here and keep the puppies as well, would it be too much? Add to that Riley’s extended presence, not to mention Nadine’s as well if it all worked out on her end… She’d been on the phone with Mrs. Zhu for a while as they’d waited for Farkle and Smackle’s flight to land and it had sounded, for what Maya could understand from her tone if not from her words, like it wasn’t a done deal by far. When she’d hung up, all Nadine would say was that her parents would consider it and get back to her. They still waited.</p><p> </p><p>For the time being at least, the puppies had been moved to a free corner in her room and the bed had been settled in. Maya could easily take in Riley to sleep next to her if need be, just as they’d done in sleepovers back in the day. But then Nadine… She doubted that Smackle, if hugging someone remained a work in progress, would just roll with having a bedmate, even if it was one of her friends. They hadn’t done anything yet, as they still didn’t know for sure if Nadine would be coming to stay as long as Riley would. If it turned into a yes, they could bring in an inflatable mattress, use it as needed…</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t even as much of a concern as the puppies were. Would Smackle be alright having them in the room? Maya didn’t know that it would or wouldn’t be a problem, not because of her issues, just in general. Not everyone did well with the three of them around, and she got that. Hopefully, if she had to move them, she would be able to move them into her parents’ room and not have to bring them into the basement or anything like that. She <em>had</em> told Smackle about Ghost, and Queen, and Tuck (She’d figured out their names’ meaning immediately), and she honestly couldn’t tell how the other girl felt.</p><p> </p><p>When they arrived at the house, the four girls were sent on ahead, Shawn and Katy offering to take in the bags for them. So, they went. Maya led Smackle through, Riley and Nadine following behind. Smackle noted the few changes in décor, maybe most prominent the pictures on the walls. Some of them were taken by Shawn, others by Maya. And there were a couple pictures of the three of them, the Hunter-Harts, at the wedding, on the day Shawn had been all moved in after the honeymoon… They had a few pictures from the trip they still needed to develop and hang up.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, let’s go see the puppies,” Maya led Smackle toward her room. When they came up to the corner where their fence had been moved, it was business as usual. Ghost was trying to climb up, Queen was napping, and Tuck was tugging and twisting at a toy. She much preferred pulling the fence back to let them roam, though with three of them sometimes it was just better off this way. “Hey, hey,” she reached in and pulled out Ghost, as eager as ever. At once he seemed to zero in on the new arrival, the only person here he didn’t know, and he would move in Maya’s arms, trying to investigate the new person. “Isadora Smackle, Ghost,” she made the introductions with a smirk, walking up to the girl, who stood observing the small dog for a moment before reaching out a cautious hand, eventually getting it atop Ghost’s head, giving little scratches. Ghost seemed to approve, and when Smackle smiled, Maya knew they’d be alright. “Want to hold him?”</p><p> </p><p>“I… Okay,” Smackle nodded hesitatingly, reaching out to take the curious pup. “Hello,” she gave a nod. Having known him since he and his brother and sister had been born, Maya thought this might have been the calmest she’d seen him in a new person’s arms, and it made her glad. Maybe he felt how she was? Either way, she had a feeling they’d both made a new friend that day.</p><p> </p><p>Nadine had already retrieved Tuck, while Riley had the now awakened Queen. For a few minutes they just sort of sat or stood around, talking about the puppies. Riley still had a number of stories to tell about her time hosting the three of them at her house while Maya was gone which she hadn’t had time to tell.</p><p> </p><p>Then Katy came in to say that Mrs. Zhu had called and that they’d agreed on having Nadine stay there while Riley was also staying over. At once, the girl in question got up to head home and pack what she would need, and Riley offered to go and help her. So, in no time the two of them were gone, leaving Maya and Smackle alone with the puppies.</p><p> </p><p>Smackle asked if the others would be sleeping on the floor, looking at the two beds. Maya told her how she’d share hers with Riley and Nadine would sleep on an inflatable mattress. Smackle looked back to her bed, considering.</p><p> </p><p>“Which of the three of you would you say is the soundest sleeper? Least likely to move around or… kick?” she asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh…” Maya thought for a moment. “Nadine, probably.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, then she can share with me,” Smackle decided, then, “Tonight. Then we’ll see about the rest.”</p><p> </p><p>“Got it,” Maya smiled.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know how Smackle would respond if she told her she sort of admired her. She could see how much she would make efforts of personal growth, every time, for no one other than herself, though every now and then, like hugs, like sharing her bed here, she would also do it for the benefit of comforting or helping others she cared for.</p><p> </p><p>Sitting here, now just the two of them, Maya couldn’t help but think about how much her life had changed in the year since Smackle’s first run as her summer guest. She had since then taken on what had started as a potentially foolish mission to advance herself into higher classes and come out on the other end of it having succeeded. Her mother had married Shawn, he’d become her father, and the three of them had become a family as officially as they had once been unofficial. And then, the one where Smackle had one way or another played a hand, there was Lucas.</p><p> </p><p>Maya just remembered how they’d stood in this room a year ago, and Smackle had basically called her on how she and Lucas had kissed, that time in New York. She’d been the first person, unexpected as it was, that she’d confided in, to the best of her abilities at the time. And then, as Maya had eventually come to discover, she had also been one of those to counsel Lucas on the morning of November 1<sup>st</sup>, on the same matters for which she herself had turned to her parents. Smackle had helped the both of them, in her own way, and Maya deeply believed that the part she’d played had been an important one.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe that was what had made her wish so much for her to get to host her again this summer, back when it was still assumed she and Farkle would arrive while she and her parents would be gone, making it impossible. She wouldn’t have insisted on it after learning of their delayed arrival, and if not for Auggie’s chicken pox conundrum nothing would have changed. But they had, and now Smackle was here after all, and Maya could be nothing but glad.</p><p> </p><p>Before long, Riley and Nadine would return, lugging the bags they’d packed in what had to be an orderly haste; Maya expected no less from Nadine, and upon seeing this, Smackle looked to approve of her bedmate even more. They had only just finished unpacking Smackle’s things, and now they had to figure out what to make of their two additional roommates’ belongings. Riley’s bags had been waiting since she and the bed had arrived that morning. Smackle and Nadine had teamed up and worked out a neat system together, and suddenly they were all moved in and sharing the room for the foreseeable future, and Maya felt like this summer would continue on its climb to surpass the one from the year before.</p><p> </p><p>“I have something I wanted to give you three,” Smackle announced now. “I know we are doing ‘Christmas’ next week,” she air-quoted as she’d done each time they had discussed the plan until now, “But due to present circumstances, this felt like as good of a time as any.” Maya had already been aware of one bag she had left on her bed as they’d been unpacking, just as she was aware of Smackle’s resolve that she was not allowed to touch it, so she’d guessed it would involve a surprise for the rest of them, and now she had her answer.</p><p> </p><p>Smackle pulled out three wrapped boxes, paper and ribbons as crisp and neat as they would expect coming from her. Each box was handed out to Maya, Riley, and Nadine before she returned to sit, all the while still holding the newly docile Ghost in one arm.</p><p> </p><p>“Go ahead,” she declared with a nod which seemed to anticipate the wild tearing and pulling of paper and ribbon. Soon they each had a bare box in their hands, and when they pulled it open, they all gasped with sudden excitement. Each box held a shirt, clearly unique for the print on them, a logo they would learn she had created herself.</p><p> </p><p>It showed an outline of the state of Texas on the left and down, and an outline of the state of New York on the right and up, the two connected by a chain of musical notes anchored in Austin and New York City, the whole thing fenced with a quadruple circle and fronted by the letters TXNY, the very first name for their official/unofficial band. The shirts were all black, though each print was done in a different color, Maya’s in yellow, Riley’s in purple, Nadine’s in red. When they looked back to Smackle, they found she had unzipped the vest they’d all told her was unnecessary in the August warmth, revealing her own shirt identical to theirs, in a green print.</p><p> </p><p>“Smackle, you made these, you… this is amazing!” Maya could have hugged her right then, but she did the next best thing, pulling the shirt over her head before working to pull out her previous shirt. Riley and Nadine wasted no time doing the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Get up, get up,” Riley told the others, pulling them all so they might stand together and look at their reflection in Maya’s mirror. The four of them, identical but also unique… it was just as it should be. All this time, the band thing had felt more like a joke between them, but all of a sudden it felt very real, and more than that, it felt like something they had to treat as such from here on out.</p><p> </p><p>“That was always the best name we came up with,” Nadine declared, to the agreement of the others. “Thank you, Isadora,” she smiled at her, receiving the same in return. “Go, TXNY, go,” she tapped her hand to her shirt, and the others did the same. For the rest of that day, it was all they could talk about, and it would be a recurring subject in the days to come, no doubt to it. They were committing to this now, and they would make it work, somehow, despite distance, despite any number of things they’d be juggling in the year to come. No matter how crazy it would get, how busy… they’d have TXNY.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0363"><h2>363. Their Wishes to Settle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were five of them boys sat in Mrs. Friar’s minivan, Zay, Dylan, and Asher accompanying Lucas as Farkle was brought from the airport to the house. They were all more than aware however that the lady at the wheel would lose no time in taking up the conversation, should she be given the chance. So then, the plan was clear: they needed not to leave <em>that</em> door open, by any means necessary. There was a brief discussion of them all committing to a pretend nap, but Asher pointed out that some of them – and he all too casually indicated Dylan – would have it in them to fall asleep for real and would then be a groggy mess for the rest of the day. So, their only choice was to go the opposite route: they could not stop talking.</p><p> </p><p>That somehow turned into a very unexpected session of unloading information between the five friends, like some road therapy. It had started with Zay declaring how, with his second anniversary with Nadine right around the corner, part of him had started to wonder about what the future held for them, which was really not something he’d been expecting to think about all that much, with them heading into the 10<sup>th</sup> grade. Would this be it, him and her forever? What if it all went wrong? How did anyone even know what do with that? The other boys hadn’t been too sure what to say on the matter, but they knew they had to say <em>something</em>, or else Mrs. Friar would. This had led to Lucas telling him to basically just focus on now, not so much about what would come later.</p><p> </p><p>From there it had gone to Dylan talking about how sometimes he still felt scared he might hurt himself and not get to play again, then to Farkle saying how he still missed his friends, and how it used to be, how he wished they didn’t have to be so far apart from one another all the time, and then to Zay, again, this time saying how with each summer party that neared, and came, and went, a part of him feared it could be his GiGi’s last. The woman gave no sign of letting out, but she was now in her late nineties… From there, Lucas had expressed how he still thought about where his life had been headed not so long ago, and how it might have gone if not for some changes, some new elements.</p><p> </p><p>They arrived to his house just as Asher looked as though he might say something, but then the car stopped and Lucas could see him just stop and decide to say nothing. He’d been noticing little things like this more and more, ever since the party at the Shelby house, like his friend was distracted by something. He’d said nothing though, and Lucas didn’t feel he should intervene, not now, not yet.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle’s belongings were taken up from the minivan by the five of them boys. Lucas was partly concerned that they would come into his room only to find Dash had reclaimed the spare bed after all. Instead, the dog was at the door, waiting excitedly when they arrived, and she remained hot on their trail as they went up. A year ago, just about… That was when Dash had come into their lives, and it was amazing to see how she’d grown, to remember the little thing she had been.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle wouldn’t unpack just yet. It was almost lunch, and naturally his arrival would warrant a special meal. Mr. &amp; Mrs. Friar had soon decided to take them out to Chubbie’s, knowing their summer guest enjoyed it very much. So, off they went. When lunch was over, their friends needed to head home, so finally Lucas and Farkle found themselves back in their shared room, and Lucas assisted in Farkle’s unpacking.</p><p> </p><p>By the time it was all done, it felt to Lucas, quite simply, that things were now once more as they were meant to be. Sure, it helped that, for once, the spare bed, which had remained in his room since the year before, would be used as it was intended, as a place of rest for a person, instead of as an oversized dog bed, or a place for his things to get tossed or piled, rather than ending up on the floor. But there was more to it than that. Farkle Minkus had grown to be a very important part of his life, regardless of the distance usually existing between them. It wasn’t for nothing that he freely claimed him as being like a brother to him. He remembered the first time he’d told Farkle, how honored he had felt…</p><p> </p><p>And now that he was here, for the next few weeks, it was like they had resumed what they had started the summer before. His brother was home.</p><p> </p><p>“So, then all the girls are going to be staying at Maya’s all this time?” Farkle asked, as they’d just put away his now empty luggage.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Lucas confirmed. He’d been out there this morning, helping them move the bed into her room. Farkle considered this for a moment. “Why, what were you thinking?” Lucas asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Just that, if they’re all over there… and if we were all over here…” Farkle slowly began, waiting to see if he would catch on. To Lucas, it instantly made him think about those sleepovers at Maya’s, four boys holed up in the basement, three girls in her room, and the ‘battles’ that emerged. He had not forgotten the night he and the other boys had tried to sneak up on the bay window in the rain, only to be locked out and left to scramble before all the doors could be locked… If it was the boys here, and the girls there…</p><p> </p><p>“That… that could be worth looking into,” he smirked. They could surprise them… of course that would mean a swift retaliation at the hand of General Hart…</p><p> </p><p>A text was sent off to the boys, after which the idea – of inviting the others for an extended stay, not the prank wars – had been passed on to Lucas’ parents. He didn’t have much doubt that they’d agree, but even so he was not ashamed to have made sure of having Farkle stood by him when he asked; his mother could not deny him.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, they would join them, but only the next night. For one thing, they weren’t all able to make it before then, and as they would no doubt see the girls the next day, this would ensure that they had no idea this was all coming their way.</p><p> </p><p>So, Lucas had the rest of this day with him and his friend/brother from another state. They spent most of it playing video games; they were used to playing with each other from their respective homes. It was interesting to see the way he got into the game, on top of hearing it loudly in his ears, as he usually did…</p><p> </p><p>Maya sent him a picture of her and the girls each wearing multi-colored but matching shirts. When he showed it to Farkle, his friend revealed he had helped Smackle in the design of the print.</p><p> </p><p>After dinner, and as they’d started getting ready for bed, Lucas came to find Farkle eyeing the stack of envelopes sitting on top of his dresser, surrounded by miniature monuments. He’d been meaning to find a box, something, for him to put Maya’s letters, but then there’d been only two days since her arrival, and they had to prepare for the <em>other</em> arrival, and then he could have done it before, especially not leaving them out for curious parents to see, but… seeing that pile get taller had been a constant promise that she would be back soon…</p><p> </p><p>He’d received two new letters since her return, both of them landing in his mailbox that morning but written a day apart. Maya would always mark the back of the envelopes with the date the letters had been written. He hadn’t had the chance to open them yet, with how busy the day had been, and now he really wanted to read them, but with Farkle there… Maybe he could wait until morning.</p><p> </p><p>“I should go call my parents, say goodnight and all,” Farkle said then, picking up his phone and moving out of the room in enough of a pace to leave Lucas to think he might have noticed the unopened envelopes and guessed his wish. He didn’t intend to waste this favor, so he went to get hold of the envelopes and went to sit at his desk.</p><p> </p><p>He opened the first, pulling out the letter. There they were again, the little drawn him and her, standing together on what looked like a beach, looking at each other. When he would come to the second one, he would see himself drawn there, holding her, perched up on his back, both of them laughing, somewhere he swore he’d seen in her sketchbook. She was back from her trip now, had been for a couple of days, but reading her words now he could still imagine her out there, could feel how she loved being there but also missed him, missed her friends. And he remembered how he’d missed her in return.</p><p> </p><p>But she was back now… Thank goodness, Maya was back.</p><p> </p><p>As he’d promised, as he’d done, he wrote out a reply to each of the two letters, complete with cartoon dogs, and folded and sealed them inside envelopes he’d had stocked in his desk since he’d known he’d be writing many letters. Stamps stuck, addresses written, he looked at these two replies, thinking he could take a quick walk to the mailbox and get them sent off right away, and then realized Farkle hadn’t returned yet.</p><p> </p><p>He was sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting, and when Lucas came to him and Farkle asked if he was done, he chuckled. He asked his patient friend if he wanted to come with him to take a walk. Sweaters pulled over their PJs, shoes on, they’d gone walking.</p><p> </p><p>“Did Maya give you your letters?” Lucas asked. A few of them had come for him, too, at his house, and he’d been confused at the first one, until he’d remembered Maya didn’t know about the delay and would assume Farkle would be at his house. So, when she’d come over the day before, he’d given them back to her, so she might give them to their friend herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Farkle nodded, smiling. “One from each city,” he reported, though Lucas already knew, having grown familiar with the postage stamps and markings. “Said she couldn’t wait until she could see Smackle and me, told me about seeing some places I’d seen when my family went to Italy once, and France another. Never went to Greece yet, but one day, maybe.”</p><p> </p><p>It reminded Lucas of the thought he and Maya had had about a trip, all of them, after senior year. If Farkle came with them, maybe they would <em>all</em> go to Greece, too. He told him as much as they went, and Farkle looked at once interested in this possibility. How could he not? Now he had idea upon idea, places to go, ways to ensure they’d have the means to get there… It would be their own private project, however many of them would manage to go. They could pay their own way, as much as they could, couldn’t they? They had three years, seven, nine, maybe eleven people, and who knew who else might come along by then…</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0364"><h2>364. Their Wishes to Be Merry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next few days had seen the rise of the great ‘battle’ of two camps, one of them housed in the home of Maya Hart and the other in Lucas Friar’s. The first ‘play’ had been perpetuated by the boys, much to the girls’ surprise, but then it wasn’t long that the girls had retaliated in great fashion. And then it was properly on… and it was the best of times.</p><p> </p><p>Somewhere in there they still needed to prepare for their ‘Christmas in July,’ even if it was now August. So, on the third day, they had called a truce, the better to get to do any shopping or overall preparation for the event, which was to be held at the Friar house because, well… All they had to do was say the words ‘Christmas dinner’ and Lucas’ mother was on the case. According to her, it would be like practice for December; according to her husband, she didn’t need practice to knock it out of the park.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Huckle-GI Joe.” Lucas looked up from where he’d crouched to lace up his shoe, just inside the mall, already knowing who he would find there. Maya was smiling down at him. He stood back up, matching her ‘intense’ look. “Would this be called fraternizing with the enemy?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, seeing as three of us are dating three of you, I’d say that ship has sailed, so…” he offered his hand and, after making a show of looking around in case they were watched, she took his offer up.</p><p> </p><p>“We do seem to have a knack for showing up here at the same time like this. So, who’d you get?” she asked. As on ‘normal Christmas,’ as Riley had called it, they would adopt the Secret Santa option. They had also agreed that, as it was ‘summer Christmas,’ they would get just the one present, no extras for boyfriends or girlfriends, best friends, or families. Whether or not they would do as they’d said was anyone’s guess. Maya had already just unloaded a number of souvenirs to all of them very recently, but this was something else.</p><p> </p><p>“Smackle,” he answered, and she beamed.</p><p> </p><p>“I got Farkle, would you look at that… Alright, so I help you, you help me, but when we get back out there,” she resumed her intense look, and he matched hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Understood.” They both broke, laughing, and got to shopping.</p><p> </p><p>And in the days that followed, the great battle continued, culminating on ‘Christmas Eve,’ when the final showdown was held (the better to instill a spirit of winter and holidays) at the indoor skating rink, skates on and all. Their final volley, instead of involving a surprise attack of anything from water balloons to paintballs, to spooks in the dark or suddenly missing items, came together like a ‘winner takes all’ skate off. They were four against five, which led to Maya’s taking two turns. Zay had called foul, pointing out four of their five turns would be taken by people who’d grown up in New York and probably had way more experience at this than the rest of them did.</p><p> </p><p>“Speak for yourself,” Nadine had challenged him. “But, in the spirit of fairness, you guys want to take some practice runs? Off the record?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a record?” Riley asked, erupting into a surprised squeak when the boys took off skating, leaving the girls to scramble after them.</p><p> </p><p>It became clear before long that Zay’s prediction was not so far off. The girls soon caught up and even out distanced them, though this came and went as the pack of them moved around the ice. Even those they might have believed might struggle, Farkle and Smackle in particular, excelled, while ‘Team Texas’ didn’t fare so bad at all. Really though, it would have been a fair fight.</p><p> </p><p>But then after a while it was as though all of them had forgotten what they’d come there to do, and the final encounter never happened, the great battle fizzling out to peace and merriment across the land. What else could they ask for on the eve of their own private holiday?</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, the four girls, roommates of a week already, got ready for their summer Christmas at the Friar house. Four girls and three puppies, actually, as Maya would be bringing the trio to their own friend. There was no doubt to their owners, from the first time they’d brought them together, that Dash and the pups would get along just as they’d hoped.</p><p> </p><p>Dresses on, hair done, everything came together until they were all set to go. Each of them had put on, as they would say ‘the most Christmas-like dress that won’t kill us in this heat.’ The last few days had definitely been some of the hottest they’d had in a while. But their mission had been accomplished, and emerging from the Hart house together, they did look like a pack of misplaced Christmas elves.</p><p> </p><p>And when they arrived at the Friar house, they burst out laughing, seeing how the boys had busted out the decorations, turning the place into the one sparkling spot for Christmas-in-not-July. Ghost, Queen, and Tuck barked in sudden intrigue, all the more as the door opened to show Melinda Friar in full holiday regalia; they’d expected no less. They couldn’t have chosen a better hostess.</p><p> </p><p>The music was floating through the house, even more decorations here as there had been outside, including a tree.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did you even…” Maya was mesmerized.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, we had an artificial one, down in the basement,” Lucas told her. “I didn’t even know about it; it hasn’t been used in years, we usually have real ones. Looks good, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well Holy Mistletoe, I could kiss you right now,” she intoned, and he responded by pointing to the doorway between the living room and the hall, where what she could only guess was also artificial mistletoe hung. “Oh… well, seeing as I’m your girlfriend already, I’ll just stay right here, yeah?” she told him, stretching on her toes to kiss him. “Merry Christmas, Boyfriend Guy.”</p><p> </p><p>“And Merry Christmas to you, Girlfriend Gal.”</p><p> </p><p>The idea for the day was to treat this day as they would if it were actually Christmas and they were all together. They ended up spending the next few hours watching Christmas movies, as though everything so far hadn’t already gotten them sufficiently in the spirit. This had led the now officially minted TXNY to start singing along when Maya started them off, chiming in on the end credits of their last movie. In no time she had been joined by Riley, and then Nadine had followed, and never to be left the last odd one out, Smackle had followed just as fast. They had gone right through to the end of it and, never to be deterred by the lack of a tune, they had then continued with whatever other Christmas song they could think of, all the while making great effort of ‘emoting’ to the point of getting their audience of five laughing as they listened and watched.</p><p> </p><p>The impromptu ‘concert’ was brought to an end with the announcement that dinner was served.</p><p> </p><p>The dining room table had been set for the nine of them. Much as Mrs. Friar would have wanted to join in, she had agreed in the end that this dinner was for her son, her guest, and their friends, so she and Mr. Friar were set to their own Christmas dinner in the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay so who sits where?” Dylan asked of the nine chairs and plates.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, well, Lucas should sit at the end here, it’s his house,” Smackle pointed out. “But who sits at the other end?” She turned to Maya.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to sit next to him,” she shook her head, then looking to Farkle. “You go, it’s your house, too, right now,” she reminded him. That was all they needed. Lucas took one end, Farkle the other. On one side sat Maya, Nadine, Zay, and Smackle, across from Asher, Dylan, and Riley.</p><p> </p><p>The dinner was just as they would have expected, coming from Mrs. Friar. There would be no cutting corners for her, not when it came to holidays, and cooking, and hosting, and her son. Still it wasn’t often that they had an opportunity like this, such a big dinner, the nine of them alone, dressed up as they were. It was rare, but it was wonderful. It didn’t matter that it was a scorching August day in Austin, inside the Friar house that day, it was Christmas, and they were surrounded by some of the most important and loved people in their lives, just as they should.</p><p> </p><p>They were well and full by the time they were through dessert… desserts… They climbed up to Lucas’ room, plopping down on either one of the two beds there in general silence for a beat before someone – Dylan – inquired about presents, and then there was a scramble to go and retrieve the packages they had set under the tree. They sat there now, where Maya was presented with the Santa hat, on the reasoning that this whole thing had been her idea.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” she stood up and held out her present to Farkle. “This one’s for you, from me.” When they’d been shopping, Lucas had pointed it out sort of absent-mindedly, but Maya had seen it and it was a shock from the past. All she could remember was how Farkle had once had one just like it, until Maya had accidentally broken it the day he’d brought it to school. They’d been seven, and Farkle had not gotten upset at her, but he <em>had</em> been upset, she’d known, and now all these years later, it had felt like she had to get it for him and he would know exactly why she’d done so. And he did.</p><p> </p><p>Farkle had drawn Zay from the hat a week before, and ‘Santa Maya’ presented him with the gift he’d gotten him. She’d done the same, handing the next present, from Zay, to Lucas. At the next, she knew exactly what package to reach for, as she’d helped to wrap it. She handed it to Smackle. Lucas had really not been sure what to get her. Much as she had become an integral part of their geographically challenged group, in many ways she remained something of an unreadable mystery. But then Maya had roomed with the girl long enough to get something of an idea on what they might get her.</p><p> </p><p>She’d been so unexpectedly touched, they thought she might actually cry, and she’d spend the better part of the rest of the evening holding on to her present. It was one of the memories of the night they would hold on to the most.</p><p> </p><p>Smackle’s own offering had been passed to Nadine. Despite her initial apprehension on sharing the spare bed with her, or anyone, Nadine had been very good to keeping to her side, and they had not needed to relegate anyone to an inflatable mattress on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Passing Nadine’s present, which was marked for Riley, Maya wondered if they would actually manage to make a single loop instead of having two separate loops. She got her answer as the next present passed, from Riley to Dylan. From there, she knew the next would go from Dylan to Asher, and finally, closing the loop, there would be Asher’s present to her.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t explain to the others the meaning behind the object she unwrapped, beyond how she had mentioned in passing how she was curious about it, one day hanging out with Asher, looking after the puppies, at Ray Choi’s house before she’d been able to bring them home. But Asher knew, or at least it had earned a meaning all its own that day, and his giving it to her now did, too. He’d given a smile and a nod and she’d done the same.</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the evening had been as relaxed as they could want it to be, after a meal as they’d had. Maya had come to find herself perched midway up the stairs to the first floor, watching her friends all down there and sketching them in their present activities. Here were Zay and Nadine, huddled together on the couch, talking but looking this close to falling into a food coma. There were Asher, Farkle, and Smackle, bent over the backgammon set she’d given Mr. Friar, Asher and Smackle setting up to play as Farkle looked on. Here were Dylan and Riley stubbornly dancing/flailing along to the Christmas music despite how tired they all were growing, and now attempting to pull Lucas into joining them. She kept on drawing, thinking how she could not have hoped for a better day.</p><p> </p><p>Even as she drew everyone, she would insert herself into the picture, as she well intended to be a part of it after taking this moment to herself here to capture the scene. She drew herself willing her boyfriend, he of the shaking head, into joining the two dancers for a bit of a holiday shimmy.</p><p> </p><p>To think, to think… Almost three years past, she had seen moving here as the end of everything. She looked at all those people down there, and oh… oh, moving here had not been the end but the beginning, the beginning of everything. She only wished she could have told that sad young girl, spared her a tear or two.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing up here?” She looked to find Lucas climbing up to join her and she smiled as he sat next to her and kissed the side of her head.</p><p> </p><p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
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<a name="section0365"><h2>365. Their Wishes to More & More</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Showing him the drawing, done with paper and pencil she’d taken from his room, she watched him compare the image and its model, especially as he pointed to her ‘premonitory’ placement of herself, inciting him to dance.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it’s wrong now,” she indicated the two of them sat up here instead of standing down there. “Although…” she set aside the sheet and began again on the spare page. He watched her as she worked, soon guessing at what was shaping up there, a picture of the two of them sat side by side on the stairs in his house.</p><p> </p><p>“So, does that mean no dancing then?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you didn’t want to. I have the evidence right here, see?” she held up the first drawing again.</p><p> </p><p>“I might, with the right partner,” he gave her a look, and she made a show of wondering who that was before pointing to herself with curiosity. “Yes, that one,” he confirmed. “But we can stay here a while, too,” he bargained, and she smiled, carrying on with her new drawing.</p><p> </p><p>“So, how long are you going to pretend like you didn’t get me anything?” she asked as she worked.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you… Wait, what am I saying… I followed the rules, alright, technically it’s not for <em>you</em>.” She looked up at him, confused. “Wait here,” he stood, moving up the stairs toward his room.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s fine, I have plenty to do here,” she called after him. He returned a moment later, carrying the wrapped box she’d spotted earlier, no snooping required, when she’d grabbed the paper and pencils. He sat back down while she set her things aside.</p><p> </p><p>The paper was torn away to reveal a plain cardboard box; only once she opened it did his response from earlier make sense. The box held a number of dog toys.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas Friar, King of Loopholes,” she chuckled, picking up some of the items, balls, squeaky toys… plenty to entertain her trio of growing pups. “The dogs will love these… my parents maybe not so much,” she demonstrated by squeezing one of the squeaky toys, a fuzzy and floppy yellow duck.</p><p> </p><p>To be honest, they might have not minded at all. As hesitant as they’d been at first at the prospect of taking in three puppies all at once, her parents had since more than adapted to the presence of Ghost, Queen, and Tuck. Having all of them had introduced the taking of family walks into their day to day lives. How could it get any easier when there were three of them and three of the dogs? One leash to each and they’d be off. Maya had also been seeing more and more of her mom and dad cajoling the trio, sitting with them… There was little doubt, none at all actually, that those puppies were well loved in their home.</p><p> </p><p>Maya had soon resumed work on her new drawing, and Lucas watched her in silence for a while. It was coming to be something they often did, him and her. He didn’t need them to be engaged in any conversation to feel closeness with her. He liked to see her at work, see the concentration in her but also the ideas, working their way through her mind, to her eyes, and her hand, guiding pencils or brushes. He’d asked her once if it bothered her, that he’d watch her as she worked, and she’d told him she didn’t mind at all. She kind of liked to know that he was there, that he was curious about what she did. It almost boosted her, made her want to show him what she could do even more.</p><p> </p><p>“What are they up to now?” she asked after a while, without looking away from the paper. Lucas turned his head to sneak a look to their friends below.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Maya,” he started in a voice sort of like a reporter on the news, much to her amusement, “Zay is now asleep on the couch. Nadine has joined the backgammon board, facing off against Asher. And Farkle and Smackle have moved to the ‘dance floor’ with Dylan and Riley, although to call it dancing might be too much…” At this, she couldn’t help but look up, and she chuckled, seeing how the four of them flailed about.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I <em>know</em> Farkle can dance better than that. Riley, too. But this works, too,” she declared happily before turning back to her drawing.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t keep from thinking about three years ago in that moment, for some reason. She thought about three years ago, and the people below.</p><p> </p><p>She thought about Zay, the first of all of them from here to ever speak to her. She could say she had never known anyone like him before, just as she could say she could not imagine a world where he was not her friend, but then she could say that of everyone in this room, couldn’t she? What about Dylan, eternally optimistic, proud of his scars and ready for more adventures? What about Nadine, who’d welcomed her with excitement for having one girl friend beyond the four boys who’d been her pack, and since then had become the model for her to advance, to become better and to be glad for it, ready to climb further and further? And what about Asher, the boy with the connections, as much as he was the boy who’d trusted her, whether he’d meant to or not, with a secret? And Lucas… well, she could have filled pages about him… sometimes it felt as though she had, in one way or another.</p><p> </p><p>And if they weren’t enough, then she had those three of New York, the ones she’d missed with such an ache as to make it feel tangible… Three years ago, when she’d driven away from them, she had done so with a genuine concern that she might never see them in person again. For a long, long while, that had felt increasingly possible, and the more it had sunk in, the more it would hurt. Now she knew that it wouldn’t be that way, that the distance was only ever temporary, and it could stretch on for months, but sooner or later, they would have something like this, and they would all be given relief for it.</p><p> </p><p>She thought of Smackle, who may not have been much more than an acquaintance, the… nemesis of a friend, but who had become so much more between then and now. She had become a voice some people might easily write off as strange and out of touch, while to Maya she was someone with unparalleled honesty and an openness Smackle herself might not have known she had. Then she thought of Farkle, who had grown in these past three years, in body and in mind, into someone in many ways completely different, but at heart the same caring boy she’d grown with. The pair of them, as separated as they were for the better part of the year, had never felt closer to her. What did it matter where they lived, or how they succeeded in keeping in touch? They were as close of friends as those she could see every day.</p><p> </p><p>For all that, she knew if she had the choice, she’d have them living with her in Austin, the way Riley had done these past two years. When she’d come along, Maya genuinely felt her life had taken a turn for the better. It hadn’t been easy, no, not as much as she might have believed it, or hoped for it. Their lives, kept in twin lines for so long, had been sent off into opposite directions, and when they’d turned back toward each other once again, well it had taken a time for them to lock step all over again. In some places, it felt like they were still working on it. But Riley Matthews was part of her heart, always had been, always would be. No matter how long it took, they would be part of each other forever and they would get there.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you thinking about?” he asked. She looked at him and he nodded to her drawing. “You stopped. Are you done?” She looked back at it, smiled to herself, to him.</p><p> </p><p>“Done, yeah,” she confirmed. “And I was thinking, about them,” she tipped her head to her friends below, before looking back to him, “And about you.” At this, he propped up his elbows on his knees, joining his hands, as though to say ‘were you now?’ “Yes,” she laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“Good things?” he wondered.</p><p> </p><p>“Always,” she assured him. “And, if you won’t tell on me for breaking the rules, too… Merry Fake Christmas, Lucas,” she held out the drawing to him. He took it with a beaming smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Here, come with me,” he stood up, holding out his hand to help her up. Maya followed him, and they went into his room. As she looked on, he found a roll of tape, fixed some to the corners of the new drawing before sticking it on the wall above his desk, next to the other drawing she’d given him, the one she’d done, showing the two of them sat side by side, just as they’d been just before and in the new image.</p><p> </p><p>“Here I’d been wondering why I couldn’t stop thinking about three years ago. It reminded me of this,” she thought out loud, as they stood looking to one drawing and then the other.</p><p> </p><p>They were the same and they were anything but. It was him, and her, sat in almost the same way, but that was all. Beyond that, well… they had grown, taller, older, and they had grown as people, and as people who knew each other, who cared for each other, as friends, as best friends, liking each other, becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, and loving one another… From strangers meeting, to two people who had come to know more about each other than they would have believed they could. She wondered what could become of those two she’d drawn this evening, with three more years added on to them, three and many more… She wondered and she wanted to know; looking at him, she thought she could see it. He wondered just as she did.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, this next year should be interesting,” he said, out of nowhere, and she looked confused, intrigued. “Last year, we were starting high school, we were all kind of spooked.” She laughed; he wasn’t wrong. “And the year before that, Riley came from New York, became part of our group, and the year before that, <em>you</em> were new here, and we were all getting to know each other.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good times… mostly,” she recalled, at ease to brush those dark clouds of the past aside, for this moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Next year, none of us will be new, in Austin or in our school. We’re not even new as boyfriend and girlfriend either. It’ll just be all of us… continuing.”</p><p> </p><p>“True,” she slowly nodded, “Although… I don’t think we’ll all be the same by the end of it, you, me, all of them downstairs, you know? Things are going to happen, like they always do. A lot of them good, a lot… I hope… and maybe some not so good. Can’t say for sure. But that’s alright, and you know why?” she asked. In response, he grasped her hand, and she smiled. “Five points, Huckleberry.” She kissed him, and he kissed her back, holding her close. “But you <em>are</em> right, next year will be very interesting,” she breathed.</p><p> </p><p>“Busy,” he nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, hectic… chaotic, probably,” she agreed, thinking of basketball, advanced classes, working at the diner, and the rise of TXNY… “Is it too late to run off, join the circus? I hear it’s a real sort of growth experience. What do you think, we could have an act, trapeze, or clowns… They have cowboys in the circus, right? You can teach me your ways, Huckleberry… I’ll need a name,” she rambled on before he closed his arms around her once again, muffling the last of her words into his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“No need to run, I’m pretty sure we’re already <em>in</em> a circus.” She pulled her chin up to look at him again. “Do you trust me?”</p><p> </p><p>“You know the answer, but yes, yes I do trust you, very much,” she confirmed, swaying slowly foot to foot. After a moment, he was doing the same. “And we’re dancing, look at that.” He nodded down at her, smiling the way he did, the way that told her how much he just loved her, beyond words. She knew, with how she felt now, he’d be seeing the same. “You know, here we were, celebrating Christmas in August… All this talk of next year, I <em>think</em> we’ve just skipped ahead to New Year’s Eve… in August.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he agreed with a chuckle. “Too bad no fireworks though,” he pointed out, and she shook her head, kissing him again, as good as telling him ‘I’ve got your fireworks right here, buddy.’</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, what are you guys doing up there?” a voice called from below, and it took them a moment to stop and realize someone was looking for them. “Maya? Lucas?” Now they recognized it was Nadine calling after them.</p><p> </p><p>“Watching the fireworks!” Maya called back, as Lucas bit back a laugh, especially as Nadine called out a confused ‘what?’ “Be down in a minute!” Maya told her, looking back to Lucas. “Christmas is waiting for us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Christmas, and friends,” he agreed. Neither of them looked in any way eager to travel back from their island of year’s end. For this moment, they couldn’t even remember the hot August weather outside the Friar house. It really was December here.</p><p> </p><p>“One more song,” she pleaded; they could barely hear the music from downstairs, but even if they could hear it loud and clear they wouldn’t have held it as their dance’s start or end. They kept on swaying in place, just barely, but they were so at peace now that going anywhere that would force them to stop what they had here just felt impossible. So, they kept on dancing, as she nestled her head over his heart, and he kept her close in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>In time they would rejoin their friends, and they would continue on with their festivities, until the time would come for the girls to return to the Hart home. And in days to come, with the ‘battle’ ended and Auggie Matthews finally healthy and chicken pox free again, the friends would all regain their own homes, save for the two visitors. And in the middle of any other number of activities, they would have those traditions of summer, camping with Pappy Joe and partying with the Babineaux family. And much sooner than they would have liked, Farkle and Smackle would return to New York, as all of them faced the start of a new year at their respective schools. In time, in time.</p><p> </p><p>But that time was not now. For now, there was only the two of them, in that room, dancing to some tune no one could hear, and so there was no such thing as time.</p><p> </p><p>Three years, three great life-changing years, for him, for her, for all of them. Three years to turn strangers into family, all because a Hart had come to Texas. How Maya wished her younger self had known, when she’d opened that door, finding her mother surrounded by boxes, how her life was about to change completely, yes, but not in the way she had believed it then.</p><p> </p><p>She wished so many things now, with so much more trust and hope, as crazy as it might have sounded once. She looked to the future as something good, something to discover. As much as she couldn’t set all the credit on him, when it had also been through her mother, and her father, friends new and old, many people… one among them, chief among them, her very own self… a great part of that credit <em>was</em> his, and gladly given. No one else could have given her what he had given her, and she was only made happier knowing that he was aware of this, and that the sentiment went both ways.</p><p> </p><p>“One more?” he asked after a while. She pondered, breathing slowly, breathing him.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we can go. There’ll be time for more later. Brand new year, right?” She looked up at him, that smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Brand new year.”</p><p> </p><p>THE END</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The sequel, "Our Brand New Years," will be up shortly!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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